1. Apache solr module vs Searchlight Comparison of two modules to provide faceted browsing capability via a solr back end.

2. Term Clarification I will refer to the apache Solr module, in this document this refers to the Drupal module of the same name not the apache Solr software itself. If I am referring to Apache Solr itself I will not use the word module

4. This takes some load off Drupal which only includes a SQL based search by default, which can't scale.

5. Helps Scalability in terms of content indexed and number searches performed.

6. Assumption is that you will use Solr and stick with it for some time.

8. Installed on 5,000 sites

9. 5 Active developers

10. Average bug lifetime of 3 days 8 hours in last month

11. Over 20 Add on modules

13. No install metrics

14. 4 Active developers

15. Average bug lifetime of 18 hours 28 minutes in last month

16. No known add on modules

17. Created Mar 2010

18. Safe option For a standard site which was looking for a faster search the Apache Solr module is the safe option. It is used on a large and it has a release which is marked as stable.

19. Digging deeper The Apache Solr module was built as a replacement for core search. So its' root is in Drupal terminology “ Among the extra features is the ability to have faceted search on facets ranging from content author to taxonomy to arbitrary CCK fields ” This may be a big limitation for a company which is big on content aggregation

21. Drupal has the ability to be a distributed CMS, where content is displayed from a number of sources and not stored locally.

22. The Apache Solr module, works on the assumption of local data

23. Searchlight, works from views so can index data from any source.

25. Views 3, allows plug ins to be written from any accessible data source, including SPARQL and Solr.

26. Any content aggregation system which uses Drupal should leverage views as much as possible.

27. Hence for content aggregation searchlight is a better match

29. At the moment I would recommend

30. searchlight – Solr - searchlight

31. In the future this may be

32. custom perl – Solr – solr views

33. Keeping the architecture loosely coupled will allow for further expansion in the future.

34. Drupal, Solr, Views and Searchlight will allow for a lot of flexibility Search Indexing Aggregation Result Display

36. Searchlight is still under development and will take extra effort to keep in sync

37. Some effort may be needed to fix searchlight bugs, or implement features we need

38. May not be as stable as we would like initially

39. Load test your solution constantly