# Best way to search - alternatives to full text (thinking sphinx)?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-search-alternatives-to-full-text-thinking-sphinx/175438>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 14, 2009, 12:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-search-alternatives-to-full-text-thinking-sphinx/175438 "2009-09-14T00:40:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikec)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 12:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-search-alternatives-to-full-text-thinking-sphinx/175438/1 "2009-09-14T00:40:23Z")

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Currently I am using thinking\_sphinx, but to my dismay, a lot of hosts  
do not have sphinx installed and are unwilling to install it “because  
of security reasons”. This leaves me with a very limited option of  
hosting as I’d have to get a VPS/dedicated but I just don’t have that  
kind of money, so I’ll have to stick to shared.

Long story short, is there a good alternative to full text searching?  
The only solution I am aware of right now is using searchlogic, but  
since it uses LIKE so I would have to change back to full text after a  
while.

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**Author:** ![mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikec)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-search-alternatives-to-full-text-thinking-sphinx/175438/2 "2009-09-14T19:04:59Z")

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> Currently I am using thinking\_sphinx, but to my dismay, a lot of hosts  
> do not have sphinx installed and are unwilling to install it “because  
> of security reasons”.

Sounds like a lame excuse to me…

> This leaves me with a very limited option of  
> hosting as I’d have to get a VPS/dedicated but I just don’t have that  
> kind of money, so I’ll have to stick to shared.

SliceHost has a $20/mo option. If you’re site isn’t super big that  
would probably be enough…

> Long story short, is there a good alternative to full text searching?

MySQL has full text built in if you set up the tables a certain way.  
PostgreSQL has tsearch2, but unlikely your ISP will configure that if  
they won’t configure sphinx.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikec)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-search-alternatives-to-full-text-thinking-sphinx/175438/3 "2009-09-14T19:09:33Z")

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I use site5 and I’m very happy with them. They changed ownership  
sometime last year and they’re now very much on the RoR ball. They use  
mySQL. You may find their prices / options to your liking.

I’m afraid I don’t know anything about full-text searching; it’s one of  
the next areas I’m going to look into.

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**Author:** ![mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikec)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-search-alternatives-to-full-text-thinking-sphinx/175438/4 "2009-09-14T22:48:18Z")

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I’ve recently been using Heroku. I’m not aware of how well they do for  
large apps, but for low-budget stuff, they’re awesome!