I am looking at various options for selecting a search server for a project in which I participate. The search server is used to get results on a dating site built in Rails, in which the search provides all the "matchmaking" -magic.
Typical queries include ranking documents / results using an expression (in pseudo-code):
- Rating order:
- +50 if has_image attribute true
- +10 if has_boost attribute is true
- +50 if latitude / longitude is within 40 miles of [point]
- +20 if latitude / longitude is within 80 miles [dot]
- - (distance from the attribute 'age' to 30)
- Filter by:
- Age attribute between 25 and 35
- Attribute 'sex' equals 'male'
By default, I don’t need the full-text features of most search engines, and I don’t need the full documents that I need to get - just a unique identifier.
The nature of the project gives for a search server with the following properties:
- Fair rating
- Evaluate Results Based on a Custom Function
- Attribute Filters
- Scalability and speed
- Free
I found Sphinx, Solr and ElasticSearch, but all of them (as far as I can see) are built and optimized for full-text search, with ES and Solr built on Lucene, and I don’t know what works best for searching filters / attributes.
My questions:
- Which of these servers would you prefer and why?
- Did I miss other obvious choices?