# Does aggregations runs in parallel?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-aggregations-runs-in-parallel/237189>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 15, 2020, 9:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-aggregations-runs-in-parallel/237189 "2020-06-15T21:31:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jessepeixoto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@jessepeixoto](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jessepeixoto)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 9:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-aggregations-runs-in-parallel/237189/1 "2020-06-15T21:31:07Z")

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Hi everyone,

I have one query `_search` with four separated nested terms aggregation and filters in the aggregations, this query is retrieving data in about 2 seconds when a specific term is searched.

I splitted the four queries into four different requests in a `_msearch`, each one with an aggregation. The time has reduced to about 25% of the previous one with all aggregations in a single request `_search`.

Regarding it, my question is, does aggregations in elasticsearch runs in parallel in the \_search endpoint?

My guess is that when running the aggregations in a `_msearch` it was done in parallel and that is the reason to be faster. Am I right?

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![Vinayak\_Sapre](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vinayak_sapre/32/45939_2.png) [@Vinayak\_Sapre](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Vinayak_Sapre)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-aggregations-runs-in-parallel/237189/2 "2020-06-28T21:49:09Z")

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@jessepeixoto  
\_search aggregates run sequentially. \_msearch they do run in parallel and you can control how many can in concurrently using max\_concurrent\_searches

[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.8/search-multi-search.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.8/search-multi-search.html)

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2020, 5:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-aggregations-runs-in-parallel/237189/3 "2020-06-29T05:32:33Z")

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Each query executes in a single thread against each shard, although querying of multiple shards is done in parallel. If you send 4 separate aggregation in parallel over in an \_msearch query they run in parallel across all shards.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jessepeixoto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@jessepeixoto](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jessepeixoto)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-aggregations-runs-in-parallel/237189/4 "2020-06-29T14:48:21Z")

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Thanks @Christian_Dahlqvist !

Do you know any part of the documentation says so? I couldn't find it.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-aggregations-runs-in-parallel/237189/5 "2020-07-27T14:48:24Z")

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