Build an Inverted Index from local files for a web app using Solr/Lucene

Question

I'm building a web application that needs a search engine, which will execute queries on a static dataset.

I have around 400,000 text files on local storage and I want to build an inverted index based on them. Then I need to use this index in the web app, where users can give queries to be executed on the index.

However, I'm getting confused on whether I should use Solr platform or simply Lucene to build the index and execute the searches. Could you please explain which option would be the best for me?

Answer 1

That's a way to broad question.

Lucene is the underlying library - Solr (and Elastic Search) is an HTTP service built upon Lucene, which also adds new features, such as replication, clustering, etc.

Which one to use depends on what your requirements are. Solr or ES live by themselves as services, and can be re-used across applications (and can be thought of as their own service / server, while Lucene is built into your own application).