Install opensearch-dashboards with Homebrew, pacman

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• opensearch-dashboards
• opensearch-dashboards-keystore
• opensearch-dashboards-plugin
• use_node

Project history

AWS announced OpenSearch in April 2021 as an Apache-2.0 open source fork of Elasticsearch and Kibana. OpenSearch Dashboards was derived from Kibana 7.10.2, while OpenSearch itself was derived from Elasticsearch 7.10.2.

The OpenSearch team described the early fork work as beginning on January 21, 2021, with the public release preparation preserving 7.10 branch history for attribution and removing code that was not compatible with Apache License 2.0. OpenSearch Dashboards was therefore born less as a greenfield UI and more as the open visualization half of a search-suite continuity effort.

OpenSearch 1.0 reached general availability in July 2021 with Dashboards released as the paired UI. In September 2024, the broader OpenSearch project moved under the OpenSearch Software Foundation, a Linux Foundation project, giving Dashboards the same vendor-neutral governance home as the engine.

Adoption history

Dashboards adoption follows OpenSearch adoption because it is the default web console for the stack. The OpenSearch FAQ documented migration paths from Kibana OSS to OpenSearch Dashboards, including restart upgrades from Kibana OSS 6.8.0 through 7.10.2.

Cloud providers and platform teams expose OpenSearch Dashboards as the human interface for managed OpenSearch domains. AWS documentation describes Dashboards as a visualization tool for exploring and analyzing data within an OpenSearch domain.

How it is used

Users create index patterns and visualizations, inspect logs and metrics, run searches, monitor clusters, and operate plugin-provided experiences such as observability or security analytics. The official documentation describes Dashboards as capable of performing many tasks available through OpenSearch APIs while also creating visualizations and data dashboards.

Package users get several executables through the formula, including `opensearch-dashboards`, `opensearch-dashboards-plugin`, and `opensearch-dashboards-keystore`, reflecting the common admin tasks of running the server, managing plugins, and storing secure settings.

Why package nerds care

OpenSearch Dashboards matters to package nerds because it is a large TypeScript/JavaScript application distributed in lockstep with a Java search engine. Its packaging has to align browser assets, Node-era build constraints, plugins, security settings, and strict version compatibility with OpenSearch clusters.

Timeline

• 2021-01-21: OpenSearch release-preparation work began from the Elasticsearch and Kibana 7.10 branches.
• 2021-04-12: AWS announced OpenSearch and OpenSearch Dashboards as forks of Elasticsearch and Kibana.
• 2021-07-12: OpenSearch 1.0 and the paired Dashboards 1.0 release reached general availability.
• 2024-09-16: The OpenSearch Software Foundation launched under the Linux Foundation, giving the project a vendor-neutral foundation home.

Related projects

• OpenSearch Dashboards is tightly coupled to OpenSearch and descends from Kibana OSS. Its plugin ecosystem includes observability, security analytics, alerting, reporting, and query-language experiences that live across multiple OpenSearch project repositories.

Sources

• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/introducing-opensearch/
• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/dashboards.html
• https://docs.opensearch.org/latest/dashboards/
• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/opensearch-dashboards
• https://forum.opensearch.org/t/preparing-opensearch-and-opensearch-dashboards-for-release/5567
• https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch-Dashboards
• https://opensearch.org/blog/opensearch-general-availability-announcement/
• https://opensearch.org/faq/
• https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-opensearch-software-foundation-to-foster-open-collaboration-in-search-and-analytics