Pg_bm25

last updated: Feb 12, 2024

https://blog.paradedb.com/pages/introducing_bm25
https://github.com/paradedb/paradedb/

pg_bm25 aims to bridge the gap between the native capabilities of Postgres’ full text search and those of a specialized search engine like Elasticsearch. The goal is to eliminate the need to bring a cumbersome service like Elasticsearch into the data stack.

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In 2016, an open source search library called Tantivy emerged. Tantivy was designed as a Rust-based alternative to Apache Lucene, the search library that powers Elasticsearch. Three years later, a library called pgrx — built by the same author of ZomboDB — made it possible to build Postgres extensions in Rust. Combined, these projects laid the groundwork for a Postgres extension that could create Elastic-quality search experiences within Postgres.

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On a table with one million rows, pg_bm25indexes 50 seconds faster than tsvectorand ranks results 20x faster. Indexing and search times are nearly identical to those of a dedicated Elasticsearch instance.

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