We are implementing a product review site using Ruby on Rails.
Search is a core component of the user experience. We need to make searches fast and relevant.
Should we use Lucene or another open source search layer? Should we use Google's search API and index against only our site? Or should we develop proprietary search functionality?
Thanks!
I personally like Sphinx + UltraSphinx, but I'm sure there are an equal number of people who'd like Lucene or XXX. I'm afraid it depends on information not contained in your question. What are you searching? Does it have any form of taxonomy? What terms are users going to be searching for?
Ultrasphinx + Sphinx takes about 10 minutes to get running so I'd suggest you give it a crack and see how you get on.