I use Sphinx for full-text searches of our forum database.  It works really well for this use-case because that's what it was designed for.  It is also *very* easy to setup & get running in very little time.  There's nothing wrong or negative with using Sphinx for product searches, I just like SOLR better for it.

 

IMO, a faceted search (e.g., http://is.gd/2M4QR) is important when doing a product search so that users can easily filter & drill down to get exactly what they want.  This is something that you can put together with Sphinx, but it is simplier using Lucene/SOLR.  I also like the did-you-mean capabilities & customizations you can do with Lucene.  They add complexity to the setup but they give you a lot more power. 

 

Keep in mind, I'm not an expert in either Sphinx or Lucene.  Also, I have the advantage of already having SOLR setup & running so I can choose between the two as we feel best suited.  :)

 

btw, a gotcha I ran into with Sphinx was that you cannot have text based attributes to filter your results.  I don't know if this is a limit with Lucene as well but it did make it more difficult to filter/sort results by author name.  I believe this is changing in the next (or next next) rev of Sphinx.

 

-Mike

 

From: [address removed] [mailto:[address removed]] On Behalf Of Jesse Dhillon
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 2:49 PM

To: [address removed]
Subject: Re: [php-139] Sphinx vs Lucene vs ?

 

"I would definitely not want to use Sphinx for a product title search."

As someone who will have to implement a full-text search soon, could you explain why not? Thanks,

Jesse Dhillon

[masked]

www.devazero.com

[address removed]

Michael Tougeron wrote:

IMO, they both have pros/cons.  I think comparisions for use should be

evaluated based on the goals & type of data being searched.  We are

using both here @ GameSpot.com with good success. 

We are specifically using SOLR (http://lucene.apache.org/solr/) in our

environment, and found that it works better for product based searches.

The facet search functionality is very useful & easy to setup.

Sphinx works better for full-text searching of our forums.  With Sphinx,

I *really* like the way you can connect directly to a MySQL database to

do indexing.  I also like how easy it is to do a delta index.  I would

definitely not want to use Sphinx for a product title search.

Just my 2-cents.

-Mike

-----Original Message-----

From: [address removed] [mailto:[address removed]] On Behalf Of Nick

Sullivan

Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 6:57 AM

To: [address removed]

Subject: Re: [php-139] Sphinx vs Lucene vs ?

Such a question might get more traction on a mysql group. :)

-Nick

On Sep 1, 2009, at 2:16 AM, Scott Hildebrand wrote:

Discuss!

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