Add plugins and bundles in Elastic Cloud Hosted

On Elastic Cloud Hosted, you extend the core functionality of Elasticsearch in two ways: you enable one of the plugins that Elastic Cloud provides, or you supply the file yourself. Anything you supply yourself is called an extension in the Elastic Cloud console and API, and comes in two forms: a custom plugin, which adds code to Elasticsearch, or a bundle, which packages custom configuration files that Elasticsearch reads at runtime, such as synonym dictionaries, SAML metadata, or certificates.

Refer to Plugins and custom configuration files for options that apply to other deployment types.

You can add Elasticsearch plugins to a deployment in one of two ways, depending on whether Elastic Cloud provides the plugin or you supply it yourself:

  • Provided with Elastic Cloud Hosted: Elastic Cloud hosts compatible official plugins for your Elasticsearch version and upgrades them with your deployment, except when there are breaking changes. You enable the plugins per deployment. To learn about official and community plugins, refer to Elasticsearch plugins.

  • Custom plugins: When you need a community or third-party plugin, an official plugin that is not provided with Elastic Cloud Hosted, or one you write yourself, you upload it as an extension. Uploading custom plugins requires a Gold, Platinum, or Enterprise subscription.

Plugins are not supported for Kibana in Elastic Cloud Hosted deployments. To learn more, check Restrictions for Elasticsearch and Kibana plugins.

Bundles use the same extensions workflow as custom plugins: you upload a ZIP file, choose the bundle type, and then enable the extension on your deployment. The difference happens at runtime, when plugins are installed into Elasticsearch and bundles are extracted as files on disk.

For example, you can upload an Identity Provider metadata file used when you secure your clusters with SAML.

Unlike custom plugins, bundles can be uploaded on all subscription levels, including Standard. To prepare, upload, and enable a bundle, refer to Upload custom plugins and bundles.

To create, update, enable, or delete extensions programmatically, refer to Managing plugins and extensions through the API.