Apache Lucene vs. Lucidworks Platform

Apache Lucene is a perfect text search implementation where the heap space usage needs to be kept to its minimal. It also enables search based on various search fields and most importantly the search and index process can happen simultaneously. The only scenario where it might be less appropriate would be when the index size grows too big. We have witnessed few scalable issues where the search would take a while when the index size is too large.

Incentivized

Very well suited for out of the box enterprise search applications.

• We found Apache Lucene to be extremely performant in querying large amounts of data and retrieving the correct files based on the metadata provided.
• The online community offers great support for the product. Even though it is an open source tool, it is not difficult to find help online for it.
• When we were creating a proof of concept application, we found that the software worked just as well, while being run locally on a resource-limited PC.

Incentivized

• Signals feature to boost search results helps search relevancy
• Business Rules feature for tuning search results
• Query pipeline design gives great flexibility in application development

• User interface for setup and maintenance would be helpful.
• Easier cloud/cluster setup.
• Better, centralized documentation.

Incentivized

• Documentation can be improved

It is incredibly intuitive and so easy to use that business people can now complete functions that used to be limited to software developers only.

It has continued to improve over the years.

The search and index performance of [Apache] Lucene is excellent and the quality of results is good, if not better. For implementing it with small scale applications it is a no brainer, Lucene is the best and most cost effective solution. Learning curve is not too steep either.

Incentivized

IDOL seems to be a blackbox solution. Fusion is much more flexible with more features and options for developers to choose from.

• Being an open source project we did not have to pay any licensing fees for using Apache Lucene. It has greatly improved our search functionality in our web apps.

Incentivized

• Allowed us to move software developers from enterprise search to other customer focused applications due to built in signals processing and related popularity boosting out of the box.
• Enabled business experts to work directly with Fusion to influence search results and not be so dependent on developers.