Apache Lucene vs. Google Search Appliance (discontinued)

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

The Google Search Appliance is well suited to most site search needs and it is possible to customize the front end seen by website visitors to produce a satisfactory basic interface with basic branding applied to it. However, in some situations it may be necessary to instead make API calls from a web page to retrieve search results and the format in which those results are returned might be a little more difficult to work with.

Incentivized

• 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

• Homes in on key searches.
• Immediate response.
• Simple UI, very user-friendly.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• It's my understanding that Google is ending support for the appliance soon. This is obviously an important consideration.
• The administrator interface is far from easy to use.
• There is a significant learning curve for new users.

Incentivized

Neutral rating because I've never needed support.

Incentivized

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

Google search has always been superior. No other search engine application can even come close.

Incentivized

• 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

• The GSA was not cheap. At all.
• There has also been a cost associated with our need to switch to another site search solution in the near future, due to Google ending support for the sppliance.
• That said, we have so much support content that we owed it to our customers to offer a comprehensive search tool to help them find the most relevant content - and of course Google are the masters of this. However, it's worth noting that the alogorithms used on the GSA are far older than those used on google.com.

Incentivized