Elasticsearch is a distributed, open source search and analytics engine. It allows for real-time search, indexing and analytics of data across many nodes and clusters. Some key features include being schema-free, able to scale horizontally and vertically, having a REST API, and being built on Apache Lucene. It is used by many large companies and can integrate with Drupal through modules like the Elasticsearch Connector which allow indexing Drupal content and providing search through Elasticsearch.