Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

mdbook VS Sphinx Search

Compare mdbook VS Sphinx Search and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

mdbook logo mdbook

Gitbook alternative in Rust

Sphinx Search logo Sphinx Search

Sphinx is an open source full text search server, designed with performance, relevance (search quality), and integration simplicity in mind. Sphinx lets you either batch index and search data stored in files, an SQL database, NoSQL storage.
  • mdbook Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-07
  • Sphinx Search Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-08

mdbook features and specs

  • Easy to Use
    mdBook is designed to be user-friendly, allowing users to create and manage books using Markdown with minimal setup.
  • Customization
    It offers a range of customization options, including themes and configuration options, enabling users to tailor it to their preferences.
  • Lightweight and Fast
    As a Rust-based tool, mdBook is lightweight and fast in performance, making it suitable for handling large projects with ease.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source, mdBook encourages contributions and allows users to adapt the tool for their specific needs.
  • Integration with Continuous Integration (CI) Systems
    The platform allows for seamless integration with CI systems, facilitating automated builds and deployments.

Possible disadvantages of mdbook

  • Limited Advanced Features
    While great for straightforward documentation, mdBook may lack more advanced features needed for highly complex or unique publishing needs.
  • Learning Curve for Customization
    Although customization is a pro, the initial learning curve to truly customize the tool to its full potential can be steep for some users.
  • Dependent on Markdown
    Its reliance on Markdown can be a limitation if users require advanced styling or scripting capabilities not inherently supported by Markdown.
  • Rust Dependency
    Users need to have Rust installed to use mdBook, which might be cumbersome for users unfamiliar with Rust or not utilizing it for other projects.

Sphinx Search features and specs

  • High Performance
    Sphinx Search is optimized for high performance, allowing it to handle large datasets efficiently and perform searches quickly.
  • Full-Text Search
    It provides robust full-text search capabilities, including support for advanced search operators and ranking algorithms.
  • Scalability
    Designed to scale both vertically and horizontally, making it suitable for projects that need to accommodate growing data volumes.
  • Integration
    Sphinx can easily integrate with various programming languages and existing databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and more.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source software, Sphinx provides flexibility in terms of customization and cost-effectiveness.

Possible disadvantages of Sphinx Search

  • Complex Configuration
    Configuring Sphinx Search can be complex and might require a steep learning curve for new users.
  • Limited Multi-Language Support
    While it offers some support for multiple languages, it may not have as comprehensive language handling capabilities as some other search engines.
  • Lack of Real-Time Indexing
    Sphinx is not inherently designed for real-time indexing, which can be a limitation for use cases requiring instant updates.
  • Community Support
    Although it has an active community, the support network is not as extensive as those for larger, more established platforms.
  • Feature Set
    The feature set might not be as extensive or modern compared to other search platforms that have more recent updates and enhancements.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to mdbook and Sphinx Search)
Documentation As A Service & Tools
Custom Search Engine
0 0%
100% 100
Documentation
100 100%
0% 0
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 mdbook and Sphinx Search

mdbook Reviews

Best Gitbook Alternatives You Need to Try in 2023
Mdbook is a command-line tool for creating online portals from Markdown files. It is built in Rust and focuses on being easy to use and fast. It also supports various output formats like HTML, PDF, and ePub. It also allows you to add custom themes to give your books a unique look.
Source: www.archbee.com

Sphinx Search Reviews

The most overlooked part in software development - writing project documentation
# Catch-all target: route all unknown targets to Sphinx using the new # "make mode" option. $(O) is meant as a shortcut for $(SPHINXOPTS). %: Makefile @$(SPHINXBUILD) -M $@ "$(SOURCEDIR)" "$(BUILDDIR)" $(SPHINXOPTS) $(O)import sys, os import sphinx_rtd_theme
Source: netgen.io
Elasticsearch vs. Solr vs. Sphinx: Best Open Source Search Platform Comparison
We will not make comparisons like Sphinx vs Solr, or Solr vs Sphinx, or Sphinx vs Elasticsearch as they all are decent competitors, with almost equal performance, scalability, and features. But each of them has specific peculiarities that can be influential for your project. Now, let’s take a look at which option can be better for your business.
Source: greenice.net

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Sphinx Search seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 10 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.

mdbook mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of mdbook yet. Tracking of mdbook recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Sphinx Search mentions (10)

  • Best 5 Ecommerce Search Engines for Developers
    Sphinx is a search engine that can be integrated into a website to provide advanced search functionality such as full-text, Boolean, and faceted search. It is a powerful open-source search engine that can handle large amounts of data and quickly return results. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Question about embedding for search vs clustering applications
    Have been using Sphinx. It does some processing around suffixes, tenses, and so on, and looks at word proximity (BM25), but is definitely limited. Source: over 2 years ago
  • grep like search with preprocessing
    Lucene is the thing you think you need. Elastic Search is a nice wrapper for it. But these are Java, so maybe you want Sphinx Search (C++) or MeiliSearch (Rust). Source: over 2 years ago
  • Search MySQL table for multiple keywords and return number of occurrences for each keyword per row
    Using a natural language search will almost certainly be a better solution and PHP may not be the best tool for this task. Figure out how you are going to get the text out of the PDF and where you are going to put it. Look at things like sphinx and full text search in boolean mode for doing the keyword matching. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • How to do a Scryfall-like search?
    In practice though you don't do any of this, you get a library to do it for you. I've used Sphinx Search in the past for some fairly hefty (In the order of terabytes), and there's a good book covering how to get it all set up and started. Source: almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing mdbook and Sphinx Search, you can also consider the following products

GitBook - Modern Publishing, Simply taking your books from ideas to finished, polished books.

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

MkDocs - Project documentation with Markdown.

Apache Solr - Solr is an open source enterprise search server based on Lucene search library, with XML/HTTP and...

Docusaurus - Easy to maintain open source documentation websites

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.