Empathy Platform provides responsible AI-powered search services with a variety of setup options available for companies of all sizes with diverse needs and requirements, with the level of control over the product being the most determinant aspect.

You can decide whether Empathy Platform fits your business needs as a software as a service (SaaS) or as self-managed components (SmC). Here you find a detailed explanation of these two service integration models to understand better what are the differences between them and which one to choose.

Empathy Platform as software-as-a-service model

Empowering commerce search with seamless deployment, maintenance, and configuration

Empathy Platform’s SaaS model is aimed at medium to large stores that prefer simplicity and reduced management overhead.

Empathy Platform and your data are securely, centrally hosted and maintained by Empathy.co in its own cloud (multi-tenant hosting), without needing you to deploy or manage the underlying infrastructure.

In the SaaS model, Empathy Platform seamlessly integrates into your commerce store in a few steps. Your store connects to the service via Empathy Platform’s provided APIs, ensuring a streamlined maintenance and support process. Thus, Empathy.co is responsible for maintenance and upgrades, guaranteeing your commerce search is always up to date. You don’t have to manage any maintenance processes, automatically having upgraded your commerce search and discovery with new standard features and improvements.

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Discover how to integrate Empathy Platform into your commerce store on the Onboard Empathy Platform page. Toggle between models to see the integration steps specific to your path.

The SaaS model includes core search and discovery capabilities, with adaptable and extendable Index and Search microservices to meet your business needs using indexing behavior customizations and search feature settings.

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For additional functionalities or features, Empathy’s engineering teams can collaborate with you to provide custom solutions that best fit your needs. Empathy Platform provides different service packages to help you achieve your commerce store objectives and growth plans.

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For a detailed comparison of the SaaS model with SmC, check the Spot the difference section below.

Empathy Platform as a self-managed-components model

Building a foundation for collaborative ownership for customers to deploy, maintain, and extend the product with confidence

In the self-managed model, Empathy Platform targets large enterprises seeking more control and customization options for complex needs.

As the orchestration and deployment are agnostic, Empathy Platform can operate on your infrastructure, architecture, or even cloud, giving you extraordinary control.

You can choose the hosting service that best suits your needs, either single-tenant hosting in Empathy’s cloud or hosting Empathy Platform in your own cloud. Regardless of your hosting choice, product agnosticism requires only minor modifications for cloud migration, reducing dependencies on specific services and promoting flexibility.

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Empathy Platform supports the standard commercialized clouds such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure.

In the self-managed model, Empathy.co fosters a collaborative environment to empower your ownership and accountability. For instance, a collaborative integration process ensures a smooth integration, addressing any unique requirements or challenges specific to your infrastructure. You have total control over the CI/CD process, with Empathy’s experienced engineering teams providing assistance and support for tasks like disaster recovery, infrastructure, and updates, leading to more efficient solutions.

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Discover how to integrate Empathy Platform into your commerce store on the Onboard Empathy Platform page. Toggle between models to see the integration steps specific to your path.

You have greater control and flexibility to extend Empathy Platform to meet your specific needs, tailoring configurations, integrations, and security measures. The Index and Search microservices offer plug-in extensibility, allowing you to evolve the search and discovery experience working hand in hand with Empathy’s in-house development teams. Full control of the API execution environment with extensible policies, especially in search extensibility, lets you achieve your business goals.

A comprehensive collection of metrics, dashboards, and alert systems ensures effective monitoring for real-time visibility of search performance. This allows for proactive issue resolution and optimization.

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Similar to the SaaS model, continuous upgrades guarantee your system is up to date with the latest features, security patches, and optimizations, ensuring long-term sustainability and competitiveness.

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For an in-depth comparison of the SmC model with SaaS, check the Spot the difference section below.

Spot the difference

Choosing between Empathy Platform SaaS and SmC models depends on factors such as your commerce store specific needs, preferences, and resource capabilities. While the SaaS option is often preferred for its simplicity and ease of management, the self-managed solution offers you greater control and customization.

Compare and find the solution that best fits your needs from different perspectives:

Technology layer

SaaS

• Composable architecture: core components and extensions
• Scaling and management: portable platform Kubernetes-based
• Cloud choice: Empathy-hosted cloud (multi-tenant)
• Time to Market: 4 weeks

SmC

• Composable architecture: core components and extensions
• Scaling and management: portable platform Kubernetes-based
• Cloud choice: Empathy or client-hosted (single-tenant)
• Time to market: depending on the requested solution

Presentation layer

SaaS

• Consent integrity for machine learning models
• Hybrid search (keyword and vector)
• Advanced predictive search experience
• API-first with open source solution: Web (Vue.js) and native (iOS & Android)
• Intuitive result pages to ease search and promoted products
• Recommendations carousels and components

SmC

• Consent integrity for machine learning models
• Hybrid search (keyword and vector)
• Elevated, next-level predictive search experience
• API-first with open source solution: Web (Vue.js) and native (iOS & Android)
• Intuitive results pages to ease search and promoted products
• Recommendations carousels and components
• New and customized features created for your brand’s curated search and discovery
• Access to dedicated Empathy.co teams

Tooling layer

SaaS

• Advanced product ranking controls
• Search relevancy and explainability with analytics and metrics
• Privacy monitoring, insights, and improvements

SmC

• Advanced product ranking controls
• Search relevancy and explainability with analytics and metrics
• Privacy monitoring, insights, and improvements
• Intuitive and innate data visualizations
• Experience controls: related tags and next queries management
• New tools and features developed upon request

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For both service integration models, you're billed per query, not per API call. Want to know what does Empathy Platform consider a query? Keep on reading the FAQs section.