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Apr 16th 2020 product
If your site needs a search tool to match your use case, you’ve got two options: build an internal search engine from scratch or buy from a search provider. You might be worried an out-of-the-box solution will be too rigid for your specifications. Yet building your own tool could require resources you don’t have to spare.
Whatever path you decide to take, you need to ensure your business needs and those of important stakeholders, such as project managers, developers, and end-users, are met in the most efficient way possible.
In this article, we’ll evaluate Algolia, a search as a service tool, and popular open source tools like ElasticSearch and Solr to see whether buying or building is right for you.
Open source search is implemented through free, open source software that is built to handle many different use cases. Typically, the software is governed by the Apache or MIT License, which effectively allows for any commercial or personal use. While this offers flexibility, popular open source software like ElasticSearch or Apache Solr still require a fair amount of technical expertise to build a use-case specific, industry-standard search application.
Search as a service is implemented through a software as a service (SaaS) model. With search as a service, search functionality, hosting, operations, maintenance, and more are provided by the software provider. Algolia, in particular, comes with features like instant search, multi-language capabilities, and typo tolerance built into a customizable search interface that is designed to scale as the business grows.
The question of whether to build or buy your internal search tool hinges on a few key considerations:
Once you’ve outlined what you ultimately need from your search and evaluated your available resources, you can better determine which path to take.
Building search is a time and resource intensive process that is not for everyone. Though the level of customizability might seem attractive, building only makes sense for a few types of companies.
Resource-rich companies that offer search as a key part of their product or functionality (think Google or Amazon) may take this route since they can devote entire teams to develop, implement, and maintain their search. Additionally, companies with very rigid specifications or those that need to develop a less common type of search (e.g., visual search) may opt to build. However, the vast majority of companies do not fall into these categories.
Open source software is popular in the developer community. For building a search application, it boasts a number of benefits:
While open source tools provide significant development flexibility, they do offer some challenges as well:
Most companies have few development resources to devote to building search from scratch. Yet, adding search functionality could greatly improve the experience for the average site user. In fact, 43% of users immediately go to the search bar on the site. From media to e-commerce to every site in between, online companies have to provide search experiences that live up to the standard that Google, Amazon, Netflix, and other major players have set. Buying a hosted search as a service solution can be an efficient way to improve the user experience while keeping costs affordable.
Search as a service tools are built to minimize the complexities inherent with getting search up and running. Here are some benefits of buying a search-as-a-service solution, and how Algolia helps you achieve these benefits:
While the search as a service model offers many benefits, there are some challenges to consider as well:
While it’s often tempting to build new applications from scratch, what looks to be a cost saver in the short term, actually takes more time and money in the long term. The majority of companies will find the tools they need in a hosted solution. If you decide to go with search-as-a-service, you’ll need a strong partner that can stick with you while you grow. Watch our deep dive demo to see how Algolia stacks-up to the open source alternatives.
Explore key differentiators for different use cases
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