Re: Looking for tips on improving full-text search quality in Postgres

On Fri, Mar 4, 2022 at 08:10:48AM -0500, Bayer, Samuel wrote:
> Hi all -
>
> When I have a need for both sophisticated database querying and
> full-text search, I'd rather not stand up a technology stack with
> multiple tools (e.g., Postgres and Apache Solr, or Postgres and
> ElasticSearch with a zomboDB bridge). So I've been looking at the
> Postgres full-text search capability, and comparing it to Apache
> Solr. My experience so far - which has not been entirely anecdotal,
> but hasn't amounted to a formal TREC-style evaluation - is that
> Postgres full-text search, in any ranking/normalization configuration
> I can create, is reliably worse than Solr. Now, I understand that the
> whole point of Solr is search, and this is a sideline for Postgres,
> but I'd like to figure out how close Postgres can get, and while I'm
> knowledgeable about search technologies, I'm not an expert. And I've
> looked for information on the Web about comparing Postgres search
> to other search capabilities, and everything I've found so far is
> extremely basic.
>
> Does anybody have any pointers to resources (people, sites, journal
> articles, blogs, etc.) which are deeply knowledgeable about this
> comparison?

Uh, most of our full text seach is done by Russian developers, who are
obviously very good at it. It would be helpful if you could list
exactly what is missing and then we can have a discussion the hackers
list to see what is possible. I think it would be helpful if we just
document what we _don't_ have.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com

If only the physical world exists, free will is an illusion.