solr or sphinx? which is better?

Question

I will use it to do full text search in my ruby on rails app.

which is the best choice.

solr use java to do this job. or sphix in ruby?

Answer 1

I have no experience with Solr, but Sphinx is easy to install, fast and works great with Thinking Sphinx: http://freelancing-god.github.com/ts/en/indexing.html

There is also a good railscast: http://railscasts.com/episodes/120-thinking-sphinx

This guy gives you some arguments why to go with Sphinx: http://jamesgolick.com/tags/ultrasphinx.html (He uses the Ultrasphinx plugin to connect Rails and Sphinx. I tried both and ended up using Thinking Sphinx)

You can find a comparison of both plugins here: http://reinh.com/blog/2008/07/14/a-thinking-mans-sphinx.html

Answer 2

I tried both, and they're both great. As far as I am concerned, solr requires java (since it's based on lucene), and sphinx doesn't. That's why I go with sphinx unless I have a very good reason to want solr specifically.

Answer 3

Solr may be implemented in Java but that is mostly an implementation detail. Sphinx is C++ based; do you know C++? LucidImagination provides a convenient LucidWorks for Solr distribution that will make deployment for those unfamiliar with Java a snap. Ironically, Solr has better Ruby integration than Java. There's acts_as_solr which plugs into ActiveRecord, and at a pure ruby level there are a couple great options as well but that's not your use case. You may be using rails but no matter what your server side language of choice is, you might want to consider using AJAX-Solr and it's got a fantastic demo. Lastly, Solr is definitely a larger project than Sphinx with more history and information out there to help you including my book. LucidImagination offers a free PDF reference guide too.