In the evolving landscape of data management, businesses often face a critical decision: choosing between specialized search engines (like Elasticsearch and OpenSearch) and versatile SQL databases.
Specialized search engines excel at rapidly scanning datasets for global match operations but encounter significant limitations when combined with traditional SQL operations, such as joins or detailed filtering.
This blog explores how SingleStore uniquely bridges this gap, offering a hybrid approach combining SQL’s powerful querying capabilities with specialized search functionalities.
The challenge: Pure search vs. hybrid queries
Specialized search engines (Lucene-based)
Strengths
Optimized for global match operations across entire document datasets
Efficient in executing straightforward, single-purpose search filters
Limitations
Performance significantly decreases when integrating additional SQL-type filtering or joins
Less effective for complex queries involving both text/vector searches and relational database operations
SingleStore's hybrid approach
The following illustration shows how SingleStore is structured to be able process hybrid vector and text searches with relational operations as well.
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Strengths
Seamlessly combines SQL operations with specialized search functionality
Particularly effective when queries incorporate both specialized and standard SQL conditions
Utilizes fine-grained, segment-level indexing to efficiently prune irrelevant data, significantly enhancing query performance
Start your free trial explore how SingleStore optimizes your data queries.
Understanding SingleStore’s indexing advantage
SingleStore employs segment-based indexing, creating specialized indices at a fine-grained level. This method allows efficient pruning of unnecessary segments during query execution, thus significantly reducing computational overhead.
In contrast, specialized search databases typically rely on fewer, larger indices optimized for global filtering, becoming inefficient when handling combined queries involving traditional SQL filters. SingleStore effectively balances segmentation, filtering and indexing for efficient hybrid SQL/search performance.
Real-world scenario: SQL + full-text search
Consider this common scenario:
Retrieve customer feedback containing specific keywords but only for customers who purchased products within a specific timeframe and belong to a certain demographic.
Here’s how the query would look in SingleStore:
1
SELECT customer_id, feedback_text, purchase_date2
FROM customer_feedback cf3
JOIN customer_demographics cd ON cf.customer_id = cd.customer_id4
WHERE MATCH(feedback_text) AGAINST ('"easy to use" AND reliable')5
AND cd.age BETWEEN 25 AND 356
AND purchase_date BETWEEN '2024-01-01' AND '2024-03-31';
This hybrid query highlights SingleStore’s ability to quickly filter data through specialized text search conditions alongside traditional relational database filters.
Try SingleStore's powerful hybrid querying capability today. Request a demo.
Continuous enhancements + future outlook
As part of its commitment to staying ahead of the curve, SingleStore is constantly evolving to meet the growing demands of modern applications. With each new update, the platform enhances its core features—specifically around indexing and search capabilities—to support more complex use cases and ensure optimal performance in diverse environments. Let's take a closer look at some of the most recent improvements and what’s on the horizon:
Full-text search version 2
Improved concurrency, caching, and memory management for up to 10x throughput improvement in high-concurrency workloads. Check out our blog on latest performance improvements.
Enhanced BM25 scoring
Now supports boolean queries, proximity searches and global scoring across multiple partitions.
Integrated vector search
Efficiently supports similarity searches directly in the database, ideal for AI-driven applications and recommendation systems.
Conclusion
Specialized search tools have their strengths, but SingleStore’s hybrid approach excels when you need a combination of advanced SQL operations and powerful text/vector search capabilities. With continuous innovation, SingleStore provides a comprehensive solution to complex search and analytics workloads.
References
Ready to revolutionize your search capabilities? Explore SingleStore and discover how your business can achieve unmatched query performance and versatility.
