# What is the difference between plugin and visualisation **URL:** \ **Category:** Kibana\ **Created:** [January 28, 2019, 11:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-difference-between-plugin-and-visualisation/165989 "2019-01-28T11:11:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![adityaPsl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@adityaPsl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/adityaPsl)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 11:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-difference-between-plugin-and-visualisation/165989/1 "2019-01-28T11:11:42Z")
Hello Team, I am new to Kibana and UI development. I understand we can embed or add visualisation in a However I am confused between plugin and visualisation. Could you please help me understand what is the difference between plugin and visualisation. My use case is to create custom page which will accept user inputs from various components like textbox , drop-down menu, multi select etc. and based on the input I want to perform search and show results back to the user. Which one should I develop custom plugin or Visualisation? Thank you in Advance for your help and support. Thank you, Aditya ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Gregory](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/larry_gregory/32/34969_2.png) [@Larry\_Gregory](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Larry_Gregory)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 3:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-difference-between-plugin-and-visualisation/165989/2 "2019-01-28T15:28:50Z")
A Kibana Plugin is much more powerful -- you can write a plugin that interacts with both client and server code, and create your own "apps" within Kibana to do whatever you'd like. You would have full control over the UI. A custom visualization is more focused, and allows you to easily integrate your work into the existing visualize and dashboard applications. You could also do both: write a plugin which provides custom visualization types 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![adityaPsl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@adityaPsl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/adityaPsl)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 4:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-difference-between-plugin-and-visualisation/165989/3 "2019-01-28T16:31:55Z")
Thank you very much Larry\_Gregory for your reply. Thank you, Aditya ---
**Author:** ![adityaPsl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@adityaPsl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/adityaPsl)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 9:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-difference-between-plugin-and-visualisation/165989/4 "2019-01-29T09:17:22Z")
Hello, Any thoughts on reusing the discovery plugin, which is available out of the box. Thank you, Aditya ---
**Author:** ![adityaPsl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@adityaPsl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/adityaPsl)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 6:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-difference-between-plugin-and-visualisation/165989/5 "2019-01-30T06:37:28Z")
Hello Team, I have created a custom plugin (using plugin generator) and added few controls like textbox , multiselect etc ( I am using elastic UI framework). I am able to read the data from these UI controls. I want to execute a search request based on the user inputs, Could you please let me know what is the recommended way to communicate with Elasticsearch and get the data. Thanks in advance for your help and support. Thank you, Aditya ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2019, 6:37am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-difference-between-plugin-and-visualisation/165989/6 "2019-02-27T06:37:29Z")
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