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Latency and recall re HSWN: Lucene versus Vespa
Hi Together

I just read the following article, where the author compares Lucene and
Vespa re HSWN

https://bergum.medium.com/will-new-vector-databases-dislodge-traditional-search-engines-b4fdb398fb43

What is your take on "comparing Lucene and Vespa re HSWN latency and
recall"?

Thanks

Michael

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Re: Latency and recall re HSWN: Lucene versus Vespa [ In reply to ]
I'd agree with the main point re: the need to combine vector-based
matching with term-based matching.

As for the comparison with Lucene, I'd say it's a shallow and biased
take. The main argument is that Vespa's mutable in-memory(?) data
structures are superior to Lucene's immutable on-disk segments. While
it is true that Lucene's approach leads to slower searches when there
are more segments, especially for vector searches, the immutability
property provides other well-understood benefits. TBH I don't know
enough about Vespa to make any meaningful comparison, but every choice
is a compromise. We've known for centuries that "Odyous of olde been
comparisonis, And of comparisonis engendyrd is haterede."

On Sat, Oct 1, 2022 at 7:18 AM Michael Wechner
<michael.wechner@wyona.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Together
>
> I just read the following article, where the author compares Lucene and
> Vespa re HSWN
>
> https://bergum.medium.com/will-new-vector-databases-dislodge-traditional-search-engines-b4fdb398fb43
>
> What is your take on "comparing Lucene and Vespa re HSWN latency and
> recall"?
>
> Thanks
>
> Michael
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: java-user-unsubscribe@lucene.apache.org
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Re: Latency and recall re HSWN: Lucene versus Vespa [ In reply to ]
Thanks for your feedback!

I really do not know enough, so it is good to hear different opinions
and I will try to understand better.

But anyway, I see it positive in the sense, that one way or the other,
one can learn from each other hopefully :-)

Am 01.10.22 um 14:41 schrieb Michael Sokolov:
> I'd agree with the main point re: the need to combine vector-based
> matching with term-based matching.
>
> As for the comparison with Lucene, I'd say it's a shallow and biased
> take. The main argument is that Vespa's mutable in-memory(?) data
> structures are superior to Lucene's immutable on-disk segments. While
> it is true that Lucene's approach leads to slower searches when there
> are more segments, especially for vector searches, the immutability
> property provides other well-understood benefits. TBH I don't know
> enough about Vespa to make any meaningful comparison, but every choice
> is a compromise. We've known for centuries that "Odyous of olde been
> comparisonis, And of comparisonis engendyrd is haterede."
>
> On Sat, Oct 1, 2022 at 7:18 AM Michael Wechner
> <michael.wechner@wyona.com> wrote:
>> Hi Together
>>
>> I just read the following article, where the author compares Lucene and
>> Vespa re HSWN
>>
>> https://bergum.medium.com/will-new-vector-databases-dislodge-traditional-search-engines-b4fdb398fb43
>>
>> What is your take on "comparing Lucene and Vespa re HSWN latency and
>> recall"?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Michael
>>
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>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: java-user-unsubscribe@lucene.apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: java-user-help@lucene.apache.org
>>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: java-user-unsubscribe@lucene.apache.org
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