cloudsh.com

What It Is

CloudSh is a hosted on-site search service for static websites. It uses the CloudSh crawler to scan publicly available site content and build an index. On the website side, you only need to add an authorization meta tag on the homepage, a search form, a results container, and include app.cloudsh.com/js/cloudsh.js. Its positioning is very clear: helping static sites built with Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy, Gatsby, Next.js, and similar tools quickly add search functionality.

Core Features and Integration

In terms of features, CloudSh offers a search Widget, on-demand indexing, scheduled indexing, Analytics, and search-as-you-type/autocomplete enabled by default. The documentation lists entry points for various static site generators, including Nuxt, Hexo, GitBook, Pelican, and Middleman, indicating that its main ecosystem is Jamstack/static websites. On the API side, the main text mentions that users can skip the Widget and refer to the API Documentation, but no specific endpoints, authentication method, or response structure were captured, so we can only confirm that an API documentation entry exists. For open source and self-hosting, the main text does not state that the service is open source, nor does it provide a self-hosting option; overall, it looks more like a closed-source SaaS.

Pricing and Service

CloudSh uses a subscription model, billed per site, with monthly and annual payment options. All plans include a 7-day free trial. Personal is $5/month for 300 pages with weekly indexing; Startup is $9/month for 1,000 pages with daily indexing; Business is $29/month for 10,000 pages with daily indexing; Enterprise is $120/month with unlimited pages but weekly indexing. Open-source projects can use the Business plan for free. Payments are processed by Stripe, and credit card information is not stored on CloudSh servers.

Pros and Cons

Its main advantage is that integration is very lightweight, making it a good fit for static sites that do not want to maintain Elasticsearch, Meilisearch, or a backend search service. Entry-level pricing is low, and the quick-start examples in the documentation are clear. The downsides are that there is no long-term free plan, and multiple sites need to be paid for separately. There is also limited information about SLA, team size, service reliability, and API details. The About page says it is currently “just me,” so enterprises should carefully evaluate support guarantees.

Who It’s For and Access from China

CloudSh is suitable for small blogs, documentation sites, marketing sites, open-source project websites, and static sites that want to add search in around ten minutes. The source text provides no evidence about access from China, so the status is unknown. Since it depends on overseas domains and Stripe, teams in mainland China should test network reachability and credit card payments themselves. If localization, self-hosting, or intranet deployment is required, alternatives such as Pagefind, Lunr.js, Meilisearch, Typesense, or Algolia DocSearch may be worth considering.