# Solr vs ES: performance **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [August 1, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/solr-vs-es-performance/5019 "2011-08-01T20:05:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mfeingold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mfeingold](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mfeingold)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/solr-vs-es-performance/5019/1 "2011-08-01T20:05:33Z")
In my quest for a search platform for our internal needs I am playing with both Solr and ES. I indexed the same data ~4.5M documents with the same structure of indexes and run the same query on both. What surprises me is that for whatever reason ES search is 1.5 times slower than Solr. Also the Solr index size is 650MB vs 2.1G for ES. Can you help me figure out what am I missing here? ES configuration: In my quest for a search platform for our internal needs I am playing with both Solr and ES. I indexed the same data ~4.5M documents with the same structure of indexes and run the same query on both. What surprises me is that for whatever reason ES search is more than 3 times slower than Solr. Also the Solr index size is 650MB vs 2.1G for ES. Can you help me figure out what am I missing here? ES configuration: [https://gist.github.com/1118703](https://gist.github.com/1118703) Solr Schema: [https://gist.github.com/1118711](https://gist.github.com/1118711) Query: [https://gist.github.com/1118864](https://gist.github.com/1118864) ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_Loy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ad7895/32.png) [@Paul\_Loy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Paul_Loy)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/solr-vs-es-performance/5019/2 "2011-08-01T20:33:28Z")
One immediate difference would be that the default number of shards in ES is 5 and the default number of replicas is 1 (i.e. a master and one copy). The replication factor will mean 2x the storage. Also, I think you get a local gateway out of the box, so that gives you another copy of all the shards and replicas making for 4x the actual index size. 2.1Gb is pretty much 4x 650Mb and so is expected. Given 5 shards, a query will take longer as it has to map/reduce across the 5 shards. So for a single-node, single-shard, like-for-like test you should set shards to 1 and replicas to 0. Then they'll be comparable. But then, of course, you have negated the reason why you would choose ES in the first place which is to increase write-throughput and to make your index scalable and much more available. 🙂 Cheers, On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Michael Feingold [mfeingold@hill30.com](mailto:mfeingold@hill30.com)wrote: > In my quest for a search platform for our internal needs I am playing > with both Solr and ES. I indexed the same data ~4.5M documents with > the same structure of indexes and run the same query on both. > > What surprises me is that for whatever reason ES search is 1.5 times > slower than Solr. Also the Solr index size is 650MB vs 2.1G for ES. > > Can you help me figure out what am I missing here? > > ES configuration: In my quest for a search platform for our internal > needs I am playing with both Solr and ES. I indexed the same data > ~4.5M documents with the same structure of indexes and run the same > query on both. > > What surprises me is that for whatever reason ES search is more than 3 > times slower than Solr. Also the Solr index size is 650MB vs 2.1G for > ES. > > Can you help me figure out what am I missing here? > > ES configuration: [Elastic Search settings and mapping · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118703) > > Solr Schema: [Solr schema · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118711) > > Query: [Query · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118864) ## -- Paul Loy [paul@keteracel.com](mailto:paul@keteracel.com) [http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulloy](http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulloy) ---
**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/solr-vs-es-performance/5019/3 "2011-08-01T20:34:23Z")
Few notes: - elasticsearch stores the json document itself in the index, which can explain the size difference. Also, I am not sure what solr configuration is when it comes to merging. - By default, elasticsearch creates an \_all field that aggregates all the fields as a single searchable field. This might explain the size difference (and possibly slower indexing rate). You can easily disable it: [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/mapping/all-field.html). - By default, when you create an index in elasticsearch, its already has 5 shards, so a search executes across those 5 shards (which might also explain why the index size is bigger). If you wan to compare it to a single Solr instance, then either create an index with a single shard in elasticsearch, or start a 5 core solr server and do distributed search across them (this is where a you will see a big difference, I suspect, as solr does distributed search not as well as elasticsearch). - Checking a single same query perf is problematic. elasticsearch, by design, does not have caches that solr has where they heavily come into play with same query perf test. The reason for that is that the overhead of those caches (doc cache, query cache) when it comes to actual varied usage is problematic when it comes to garbage collection in the JVM and concurrency. On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 11:05 PM, Michael Feingold [mfeingold@hill30.com](mailto:mfeingold@hill30.com)wrote: > In my quest for a search platform for our internal needs I am playing > with both Solr and ES. I indexed the same data ~4.5M documents with > the same structure of indexes and run the same query on both. > > What surprises me is that for whatever reason ES search is 1.5 times > slower than Solr. Also the Solr index size is 650MB vs 2.1G for ES. > > Can you help me figure out what am I missing here? > > ES configuration: In my quest for a search platform for our internal > needs I am playing with both Solr and ES. I indexed the same data > ~4.5M documents with the same structure of indexes and run the same > query on both. > > What surprises me is that for whatever reason ES search is more than 3 > times slower than Solr. Also the Solr index size is 650MB vs 2.1G for > ES. > > Can you help me figure out what am I missing here? > > ES configuration: [Elastic Search settings and mapping · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118703) > > Solr Schema: [Solr schema · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118711) > > Query: [Query · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118864) ---
**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/solr-vs-es-performance/5019/4 "2011-08-01T20:36:37Z")
Ha!, Paul already answered some of it :), lemme just correct some things Paul 🙂 On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 11:33 PM, Paul Loy [keteracel@gmail.com](mailto:keteracel@gmail.com) wrote: > One immediate difference would be that the default number of shards in ES > is 5 and the default number of replicas is 1 (i.e. a master and one copy). > > The replication factor will mean 2x the storage. Thats only affects things if you have more than 1 node, as elasticsearch won't allocate a shard and a replica on the same node. > Also, I think you get a local gateway out of the box, so that gives you > another copy of all the shards and replicas making for 4x the actual index > size. 2.1Gb is pretty much 4x 650Mb and so is expected. The local gateway does _not_ create another copy of the data, it uses the same data directory that your indices reside on. > Given 5 shards, a query will take longer as it has to map/reduce across the > 5 shards. > > So for a single-node, single-shard, like-for-like test you should set > shards to 1 and replicas to 0. Then they'll be comparable. But then, of > course, you have negated the reason why you would choose ES in the first > place which is to increase write-throughput and to make your index scalable > and much more available. 🙂 > > Cheers, > > On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Michael Feingold [mfeingold@hill30.com](mailto:mfeingold@hill30.com)wrote: > > > In my quest for a search platform for our internal needs I am playing > > with both Solr and ES. I indexed the same data ~4.5M documents with > > the same structure of indexes and run the same query on both. > > > > What surprises me is that for whatever reason ES search is 1.5 times > > slower than Solr. Also the Solr index size is 650MB vs 2.1G for ES. > > > > Can you help me figure out what am I missing here? > > > > ES configuration: In my quest for a search platform for our internal > > needs I am playing with both Solr and ES. I indexed the same data > > ~4.5M documents with the same structure of indexes and run the same > > query on both. > > > > What surprises me is that for whatever reason ES search is more than 3 > > times slower than Solr. Also the Solr index size is 650MB vs 2.1G for > > ES. > > > > Can you help me figure out what am I missing here? > > > > ES configuration: [Elastic Search settings and mapping · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118703) > > > > Solr Schema: [Solr schema · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118711) > > > > Query: [Query · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/1118864) > > ## -- > > Paul Loy > [paul@keteracel.com](mailto:paul@keteracel.com) > [http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulloy](http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulloy) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 3:58am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/solr-vs-es-performance/5019/5 "2017-07-06T03:58:38Z")