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title: Get started
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# OpenSearch documentation

This site contains the technical documentation for [OpenSearch](https://opensearch.org/), the Apache 2.0-licensed search, analytics, and visualization suite with advanced security, alerting, SQL support, automated index management, deep performance analysis, and more.

[Get started](#docker-quickstart){: .btn .btn-blue }


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## Why use OpenSearch?

OpenSearch is well-suited to the following use cases:

* Log analytics
* Real-time application monitoring
* Clickstream analytics
* Search backend

Component | Purpose
:--- | :---
[OpenSearch](opensearch/) | Data store and search engine
[OpenSearch Dashboards](opensearch-dashboards/) | Search frontend and visualizations
[Security](security-plugin/) | Authentication and access control for your cluster
[Alerting](monitoring-plugins/alerting/) | Receive notifications when your data meets certain conditions
[SQL](search-plugins/sql/) | Use SQL or a piped processing language to query your data
[Index State Management](im-plugin/) | Automate index operations
[KNN](search-plugins/knn/) | Find “nearest neighbors” in your vector data
[Performance Analyzer](monitoring-plugins/pa/) | Monitor and optimize your cluster
[Anomaly Detection](monitoring-plugins/ad/) | Identify atypical data and receive automatic notifications
[Asynchronous Search](search-plugins/async/) | Run search requests in the background

You can install OpenSearch plugins [individually](opensearch/install/plugins/) or use the [all-in-one packages](opensearch/install/). Most of these OpenSearch plugins have corresponding OpenSearch Dashboards plugins that provide a convenient, unified user interface.

For specifics around the project, see the [FAQ](https://opensearch.org/faq/).


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## Docker quickstart
Docker
{: .label .label-green }

1. Install and start [Docker Desktop](https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop).
1. Run the following commands:

   ```bash
   docker pull opensearchproject/opensearch:{{site.opensearch_version}}
   docker run -p 9200:9200 -p 9600:9600 -e "discovery.type=single-node" opensearchproject/opensearch:{{site.opensearch_version}}
   ```

1. In a new terminal session, run:

   ```bash
   curl -XGET --insecure https://localhost:9200 -u admin:admin
   ```

To learn more, see [Install OpenSearch](opensearch/install/) and [Install OpenSearch Dashboards](dashboards/install/).


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## Looking for the Javadoc?

See [opensearch.org/docs/javadocs/](https://opensearch.org/docs/javadocs/).


## Get involved

[OpenSearch](https://opensearch.org) is supported by Amazon Web Services. All components are available under the [Apache License, Version 2.0](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html) on [GitHub](https://github.com/opensearch-project/).

The project welcomes GitHub issues, bug fixes, features, plugins, documentation---anything at all. To get involved, see [Contributing](https://opensearch.org/source.html) on the OpenSearch website.