# Search performance multiple fields vs custom all field

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-performance-multiple-fields-vs-custom-all-field/64089>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [October 27, 2016, 4:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-performance-multiple-fields-vs-custom-all-field/64089 "2016-10-27T04:27:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Meenakshi.Jindal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/848f3c/32.png) [@Meenakshi.Jindal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Meenakshi.Jindal)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 4:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-performance-multiple-fields-vs-custom-all-field/64089/1 "2016-10-27T04:27:20Z")

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We have the requirement to enable the default search on a set of data fields?  
Which is better approach?

"multi\_match": {  
"query": "Quick brown fox",  
"fields": ["f1", "f2","f3","f4","f5"...]  
}

OR create a custom search field using copy\_to operator and do full text search on that field.

Considering all these fields have specific search requirement and required to be analyzed using edgengram analyzer.

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**Author:** ![nik9000](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nik9000/32/44947_2.png) [@nik9000](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/nik9000)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-performance-multiple-fields-vs-custom-all-field/64089/2 "2016-10-31T14:41:38Z")

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I'd performance test it locally. The multi\_match solution gives you more flexibility to decide the fields at runtime and takes up less space on disk, though I've deployed the `copy_to` + `edgengram` analyzer solution and seen very, very good performance out of it. You might also want to look at the completion suggestion which is designed to work like the `edgengram` analyzer solution but has even tighter performance requirements at the cost of using a good bit of managed memory.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 10:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/search-performance-multiple-fields-vs-custom-all-field/64089/3 "2017-07-05T22:08:14Z")

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