Good plugin as-is, great if you can code a bit

I have been researching various search plugins. I don’t have an e-commerce store but I do have a site with a lot of posts (over 20k) and various custom taxonomies. I also have some custom fields but I am not concerned with using those to search. I say this only as background to better understand my review.

So far I have narrowed my search to this plugin and the Search & Filter plugin (free version). The latter is a fine choice and offers more field types (notably multiselect and date) by default but doesn’t search custom fields (as noted above, not an issue for me) and also doesn’t offer AJAX functionality. So, if (1) you need multiselect or date fields and don’t care about AJAX and (2) aren’t comfortable extending code via programming, Search & Filter might be superior to Ultimate WP Query Search Filter.

On the other hand, if you want AJAX, want to search custom meta fields and/or don’t need a multiselect or date form fields, Ultimate WP Query Search Filter is the way to go.

Where this plugin really shines is its extensibility. The author has applied many filters so you can modify it to suit your needs and various support topics and forum threads (on the developer’s site) discuss doing so. I have now successfully added a multiselect dropdown with hierarchical taxonomy listings as well as date range fields.

I do wish the developer would incorporate some of the changes I and others have made as they would vastly improve the plugin for average users who cannot code. Having said that, he/she is very responsive on the support forum.

tl;dr:
– a very good plugin out of the box with certain exceptions (no multiselect or date search)
– a really great plugin if you are capable of coding up some extra functionality