Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Typesense VS Apache Lucene

Compare Typesense VS Apache Lucene and see what are their differences

Typesense logo Typesense

Typo tolerant, delightfully simple, open source search 🔍

Apache Lucene logo Apache Lucene

High-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java.
  • Typesense Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-07
  • Apache Lucene Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-20

Typesense features and specs

  • High Performance
    Typesense offers highly optimized search capabilities with fast response times, ensuring quick retrieval of search results even with large datasets.
  • Easy to Set Up
    Typesense is user-friendly and can be quickly set up using a simple configuration, making it accessible for developers who need a straightforward search solution.
  • Real-Time Indexing
    Typesense supports real-time indexing, meaning new data or updates to existing data are searchable almost immediately without significant delay.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source solution, Typesense provides transparency, community support, and the possibility for customization to meet specific needs.
  • Typo Tolerance
    Typesense’s built-in typo tolerance allows for forgiving spell-check and correction, enhancing user experience by returning relevant results despite minor typing errors.
  • Faceted Search
    The platform supports faceted search, which lets users narrow down search results through various categories, improving relevancy and user navigation.

Possible disadvantages of Typesense

  • Limited Advanced Features
    Compared to some competitors, Typesense offers fewer advanced search features like natural language processing or machine learning-based relevance tuning.
  • Community Support
    Being relatively newer, Typesense has a smaller user base and community support compared to established search engines like ElasticSearch or Solr.
  • Documentation
    Some users may find Typesense’s documentation to be less comprehensive, potentially leading to a steeper learning curve for complex use-cases.
  • Scalability
    While Typesense is scalable, enterprise-level users managing extremely large datasets might find it less robust compared to established solutions that have been battle-tested in large-scale environments.
  • Ecosystem Integration
    The integration ecosystem is still developing, which means fewer out-of-the-box integrations with other popular tools and platforms compared to older search engines.

Apache Lucene features and specs

  • High Performance
    Lucene is known for its high-performance indexing and searching capabilities, which makes it suitable for handling large volumes of data efficiently.
  • Scalability
    Lucene can scale effectively to handle large datasets and accommodate growing data needs without significant performance degradation.
  • Flexible Querying
    It offers a rich query language and supports complex queries, allowing developers to perform precise and advanced searches.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source, Lucene is free to use and has a supportive community, which enhances its features through contributions and plugins.
  • Extensive Ecosystem
    Lucene is part of a larger ecosystem with tools like Apache Solr and Elasticsearch, which provide additional functionalities and easier management.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Lucene

  • Complexity
    Lucene can be complex to set up and configure, requiring a good understanding of indexing and search concepts.
  • Limited Out-of-the-box Features
    Lucene is a low-level library and lacks some of the out-of-the-box features found in higher-level search platforms, necessitating more custom development.
  • Steeper Learning Curve
    Developers need to invest time to understand its API and functionalities fully, which can be challenging for beginners.
  • Java Dependency
    As a Java-based library, Lucene requires a Java environment, which might not suit all development stacks or teams preferring other languages.
  • No Built-in Distributed Features
    Lucene itself does not handle distributed search and indexing natively, requiring integration with other tools like Solr or Elasticsearch for distributed capabilities.

Typesense videos

Getting started with Typesense

Apache Lucene videos

Paper Review - "Apache Lucene 4." SIGIR 2012 workshop on open source information retrieval

More videos:

  • Review - Fundamentals of Information Retrieval, Illustration with Apache Lucene

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Typesense and Apache Lucene)
Custom Search Engine
86 86%
14% 14
Custom Search
88 88%
12% 12
Search Engine
88 88%
12% 12
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Typesense and Apache Lucene. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Typesense and Apache Lucene

Typesense Reviews

Best Elasticsearch alternatives for search
A plug for yours truly! At Relevance AI, we’re building an Elasticsearch alternative that is very different to alternatives like Algolia and Typesense. Relevance AI search is an instant search API that understands “semantics”.
Source: relevance.ai
5 Open-Source Search Engines For your Website
Typesense is a fast, typo-tolerant search engine for building delightful search experiences. It claims that it is an Easier-to-Use ElasticSearch Alternative & an Open Source Algolia Alternative.
Source: vishnuch.tech
Recommendations for Poor Man's ElasticSearch on AWS?
Oh hey! I'm one of the co-founders of Typesense. Delighted to stumble on a mention of Typesense on Indiehackers. Long time lurker, first time poster :)

Apache Lucene Reviews

5 Open-Source Search Engines For your Website
Apache Lucene is a free and open-source search engine software library, originally written completely in Java. It is supported by the Apache Software Foundation and is released under the Apache Software License. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform.
Source: vishnuch.tech

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Typesense should be more popular than Apache Lucene. It has been mentiond 58 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.

Typesense mentions (58)

View more

Apache Lucene mentions (7)

  • Looking for small libraries implemented in multiple langauges
    I have to find a few examples of relatively small programming libraries that has been rewritten/ported to C++, C# and Java. Example: Lucene (it isn't that small, but still shows what I'm looking for). Source: about 2 years ago
  • HBO Max needs to stop purging its content.
    He is talking about impacting the search algorithm. Putting a “+” sounds like it is negatively impacting search quality. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Whoever worked on Steam's search engine needs a raise.
    For example Lucene is a core project common to many search engines, lots of things built ontop of it. And there are similar libraries Https://lucene.apache.org/core/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Prometheus vs Elasticsearch stack - Key concepts, features, and differences
    Full-text search Elasticsearch is built on top of Apache Lucene, an open-source information retrieval software. Apache Lucene enables Elasticsearch can perform complex full-text searches using a single or combination of word phrases against its No SQL database. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • A simple but efficient algorithm for searching a large dataset of objects?
    If I had control of the back end I would implement a full-text engine such as Lucene. Generate the lookup table as a batch job and then perform the FTS when the request comes in. If you try to do this real-time, your search will take exponentially longer the larger the data set gets. Source: about 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Typesense and Apache Lucene, 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.

Meilisearch - Ultra relevant, instant, and typo-tolerant full-text search API

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

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

Vespa.ai - Store, search, rank and organize big data