DocumentationExperience Cloud KCS

AEM as a Cloud Service: Licensing and usage for native Oak index and QueryBuilder search

Last update: October 29, 2026

This article explains the licensing, cost, and usage considerations for organizations migrating from an external search engine to Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service’s native Oak index and QueryBuilder search capabilities.

Description description

Environment

Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service (all versions)

Issue/Symptoms

Organizations planning to migrate from an external search engine to AEM’s native search capabilities often need to confirm:

  • Whether using Oak indexes (Lucene/Elasticsearch) and the QueryBuilder API in AEM as a Cloud Service incurs additional licensing costs.
  • If there are limits or restrictions regarding query volume, index size, or the number of custom indexes that could result in extra charges.
  • Whether the indexing backend in AEM as a Cloud Service has tier or capacity limits that would require a license upgrade if exceeded.
  • If advanced search features (faceted search, full-text search, suggestions/autocomplete) require a paid add-on or separate module.
  • Whether there are recommendations or limitations for using AEM’s native search as a replacement for enterprise-level external search engines.

Resolution resolution

Follow these steps to resolve the issue:

  1. Native search and indexing capabilities, including Oak indexes (Lucene/Elasticsearch) and QueryBuilder, are included as part of the AEM as a Cloud Service platform license. No separate search-specific license or add-on is required for standard functionality.
  2. There are no separate charges based on query volume, index size, or the number of custom indexes. However, higher search workloads can consume additional AEM resources for indexing and query processing.
  3. Search responses (HTML or JSON) from production environments may contribute to AEM as a Cloud Service content-request usage. Assess the commercial impact based on expected search traffic and the terms of your Adobe agreement.
  4. There is no customer-selectable search backend tier or a native-search usage threshold that would automatically require a license upgrade. Native search is managed as part of the AEM as a Cloud Service platform.
  5. Core native search features (full-text search, faceted search, suggestions/autocomplete) are included and do not require a separate paid module. Suitability depends on your specific functional requirements.
  6. For high-volume use cases, ensure queries and indexes are designed and tested appropriately. Poorly optimized queries or indexes can negatively affect performance.
  7. Adobe recommends conducting a proof of concept and load testing to evaluate search latency, error rates, indexing duration, resource consumption, and relevance quality.
  8. For best practices, review the official AEM documentation on indexing and content requests.
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