Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Google Cloud Search VS Apache Solr

Compare Google Cloud Search VS Apache Solr and see what are their differences

Google Cloud Search logo Google Cloud Search

Search across all your company's content in G Suite.

Apache Solr logo Apache Solr

Solr is an open source enterprise search server based on Lucene search library, with XML/HTTP and...
  • Google Cloud Search Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-20
  • Apache Solr Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-28

Google Cloud Search features and specs

  • Integration with Google Workspace
    Google Cloud Search seamlessly integrates with other Google Workspace tools, such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar, making it easier to find documents, emails, and events.
  • AI and Machine Learning
    Leverages Google's advanced AI and machine learning algorithms to provide relevant and contextual search results, improving user efficiency.
  • Security
    Offers robust security features, including user access controls, data encryption, and compliance with industry standards, ensuring that information is protected.
  • Enterprise Search
    Provides a comprehensive search solution that can index and search various data repositories, both within and outside the Google Workspace environment.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    Features a simple and intuitive interface, reducing the learning curve and making it easy for employees to perform searches efficiently.

Possible disadvantages of Google Cloud Search

  • Cost
    Can be relatively expensive for small businesses or organizations on a tight budget, especially when scaling up to meet enterprise needs.
  • Limited Compatibility
    While it integrates well with Google Workspace, it may not be as compatible with non-Google services and legacy systems, limiting its use in heterogeneous IT environments.
  • Customization
    Offers fewer customization options compared to some other enterprise search solutions, which may be a drawback for organizations with specific needs.
  • Dependency on Google Ecosystem
    Organizations heavily invested in non-Google products may find themselves constrained, as the tool works best within the Google ecosystem.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While the basic interface is user-friendly, some advanced features and administrative controls may require additional training and expertise.

Apache Solr features and specs

  • Scalability
    Apache Solr is highly scalable, capable of handling large amounts of data and numerous queries per second. It supports distributed search and indexing, which allows for horizontal scaling by adding more nodes.
  • Flexibility
    Solr provides flexible schema management, allowing for dynamic field definitions and easy handling of various data types. It supports a variety of search query types and can be customized to meet specific search requirements.
  • Rich Feature Set
    Solr comes with a wealth of features out-of-the-box, including faceted search, result highlighting, multi-index search, and advanced filtering capabilities. It also offers robust analytics and joins support.
  • Community and Documentation
    Being an open-source project, Apache Solr has a strong community and comprehensive documentation, which ensures continuous improvements, updates, and extensive support resources for developers.
  • Integrations
    Solr integrates well with a variety of databases and data sources, and it provides REST-like APIs for ease of integration with other applications. It also has strong support for popular programming languages like Java, Python, and Ruby.
  • Performance
    Solr is built on top of Apache Lucene, which provides high performance for searching and indexing. It is optimized for speed and can handle rapid data ingestion and real-time indexing.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Solr

  • Complexity
    The initial setup and configuration of Apache Solr can be complex, particularly for those not already familiar with search engines and indexing concepts. Managing a distributed Solr installation also requires considerable expertise.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running Solr, especially for large datasets, can be resource-intensive in terms of both memory and CPU. It requires careful tuning and adequate hardware to maintain performance.
  • Learning Curve
    The learning curve for Apache Solr can be steep due to its extensive feature set and the complexity of its configuration options. New users may find it challenging to get up to speed quickly.
  • Consistency Issues
    In distributed setups, ensuring data consistency can be challenging, particularly for users unfamiliar with managing clustered environments. There may be delays or issues with synchronizing indexes across multiple nodes.
  • Maintenance
    Ongoing maintenance of a Solr instance, including monitoring, tuning, and scaling, can be labor-intensive. This requires dedicated effort to keep the system running efficiently over time.
  • Limited Real-time Capabilities
    Although Solr provides near real-time indexing, it may not be as effective as some specialized real-time search engines. For applications requiring truly real-time capabilities, additional solutions might be necessary.

Google Cloud Search videos

Introducing Google Cloud Search

More videos:

  • Review - Google Cloud Search: A Fully Managed Secure Enterprise Search Platform from Google (Cloud Next '18)
  • Demo - Google Cloud Search demo

Apache Solr videos

Solr Index - Learn about Inverted Indexes and Apache Solr Indexing

More videos:

  • Review - Solr Web Crawl - Crawl Websites and Search in Apache Solr

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Google Cloud Search and Apache Solr)
Custom Search Engine
24 24%
76% 76
Custom Search
25 25%
75% 75
Search API
34 34%
66% 66
Search Engine
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Google Cloud Search and Apache Solr

Google Cloud Search Reviews

We have no reviews of Google Cloud Search yet.
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Apache Solr Reviews

Top 10 Site Search Software Tools & Plugins for 2022
Apache Solr is optimized to handle high-volume traffic and is easy to scale up or down depending on your changing needs. The near real-time indexing capabilities ensure that your content remains fresh and search results are always relevant and updated. For more advanced customization, Apache Solr boasts extensible plug-in architecture so you can easily plug in index and...
5 Open-Source Search Engines For your Website
Apache Solr is the popular, blazing-fast, open-source enterprise search platform built on Apache Lucene. Solr is a standalone search server with a REST-like API. You can put documents in it (called "indexing") via JSON, XML, CSV, or binary over HTTP. You query it via HTTP GET and receive JSON, XML, CSV, or binary results.
Source: vishnuch.tech
Elasticsearch vs. Solr vs. Sphinx: Best Open Source Search Platform Comparison
Solr is not as quick as Elasticsearch and works best for static data (that does not require frequent changing). The reason is due to caches. In Solr, the caches are global, which means that, when even the slightest change happens in the cache, all indexing demands a refresh. This is usually a time-consuming process. In Elastic, on the other hand, the refreshing is made by...
Source: greenice.net
Algolia Review – A Hosted Search API Reviewed
If you’re not 100% satisfied with Algolia, there are always alternative methods to accomplish similar results, such as Solr (open-source & self-hosted) or ElasticSearch (open-source or hosted). Both of these are built on Apache Lucene, and their search syntax is very similar. Amazon Elasticsearch Service provides a fully managed Elasticsearch service which makes it easy to...
Source: getstream.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Solr should be more popular than Google Cloud Search. It has been mentiond 19 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Google Cloud Search mentions (2)

Apache Solr mentions (19)

  • List of 45 databases in the world
    Solr — Open-source search platform built on Apache Lucene. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Considerations for Unicode and Searching
    I want to spend the brunt of this article talking about how to do this in Postgres, partly because it's a little more difficult there. But let me start in Apache Solr, which is where I first worked on these issues. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Swirl: An open-source search engine with LLMs and ChatGPT to provide all the answers you need 🌌
    Using the Galaxy UI, knowledge workers can systematically review the best results from all configured services including Apache Solr, ChatGPT, Elastic, OpenSearch, PostgreSQL, Google BigQuery, plus generic HTTP/GET/POST with configurations for premium services like Google's Programmable Search Engine, Miro and Northern Light Research. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Looking for software
    Apache Solr can be used to index and search text-based documents. It supports a wide range of file formats including PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, and plain text files. https://solr.apache.org/. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • 'google-like' search engine for files on my NAS
    If so, then https://solr.apache.org/ can be a solution, though there's a bit of setup involved. Oh yea, you get to write your own "search interface" too which would end up calling solr's api to find stuff. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Google Cloud Search and Apache Solr, you can also consider the following products

Algolia - Algolia's Search API makes it easy to deliver a great search experience in your apps & websites. Algolia Search provides hosted full-text, numerical, faceted and geolocalized search.

ElasticSearch - Elasticsearch is an open source, distributed, RESTful search engine.

FYI - Find your documents, like magic 🔮

Typesense - Typo tolerant, delightfully simple, open source search 🔍

Meta Search - Search your Desktop, Google Drive, Dropbox, Gmail, Evernote.

Swiftype - The simplest way to add search to your website or application. Sign up for free.