Apache Lucene is an open source and free text search engine library written in Java. It is a technology suitable for applications that requires full-text search, and is available cross-platform.
$0
per month
IBM Watson Discovery
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
IBM offers Watson Discovery, a natural language processing (NLP) application with options to measure sentiment, detect entities, semantic roles, and other concepts.
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.
Companies with a strong IT foundation looking for data-driven insights and efficient data analysis tools should give IBM Watson Discovery top consideration. It is a great instrument for making decisions, combining several data sources and offering insights motivated by artificial intelligence. Also, its personalizing tools let us maximize models for our specific study requirements.
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.
Searching through big collections of documents has never been easier thanks to Discovery's ability to identify, classify, profile, tag, and even split documents to allow for optimized search results.
IBM Watson Discovery is by far the go-to tool for mining data collections and getting deeper insights, thanks to the recent release of the Data Miner feature and its amazing graphic interface.
Another thing Discovery does well is the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Smart Document Understanding (SDU) features to train and learn the structures of documents which makes it super easy to find and highlight answers to complex questions.
I believe AI should be more flexible about providing data. However, it's understandable that you need to provide the details you need in a more specific and detailed way.
The interface could use more tweaking. Being new to the program, it was kind of hard to navigate.
Luckily, there was a customized feature of the dashboard that I could set up, and having something that you know where you are placed always feels familiar and comfortable.
IBM Watson Discovery has the best user capabilities and easily transform business decision-making portfolio. The automation system saves time used in data analysis as opposed to manual research that consumes a lot of time. The visualization across the dashboard enables my team to interpret complex data and use it to make reliable marketing decisions.
Similar to all IBM Watson and Salesforce product solutions, the overall support would be a 10/10. Their provided FAQ's help with frequently experienced issues and if still unable to figure something out, their customer service representatives are always super responsive. With instant chat functions available, it is easy to ask a quick question rather than sitting on hold.
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.
Discovery differs from its competitors due to the better ease of implementation and the high level of natural language recognition, it is equal in integration resources such as API and workflow or process pipeline, but it loses in the price for a high volume of documents and/or research. If you own or plan to use other services from the IBM Watson family, there is no doubt that Watson discovery is your best option. Another important point is if you plan to use a cloud or on-premise service (local server or private cloud).
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.
