Postgres Full Text Search vs Elasticsearch

 Full Text Search over Postgres: Elasticsearch vs. Alternatives - ParadeDB

What is Full Text Search (FTS)?

Full text search is a technique that finds entries in a collection of text based on the presence of specific keywords and phrases. Most search engines like Elasticsearch use the BM25 algorithm to rank search results. BM25 considers how often a term appears and how unique that term is across all documents.

Full text search is different from similarity search, also known as vector search, which searches for and ranks results by semantic meaning. Many modern applications use a combination of full text and similarity search. This practice is called hybrid search and can yield more accurate results.


Postgres FTS is a native functionality available to all Postgres databases. It leverages the tsvector data type, which stores text as searchable tokens, and the GIN index, which improves search speeds.

ParadeDB is a full text search engine built for Postgres. Powered by an extension called pg_search, ParadeDB embeds Tantivy, a Rust-based Lucene alternative, inside Postgres. Like native Postgres FTS, ParadeDB plugs into any existing, self-managed Postgres database with no additional infrastructure. Like Elasticsearch, ParadeDB provides the capabilities of an advanced full text search engine.

94X Faster than Postgres
ParadeDB brings column-oriented storage and vectorized query execution to Postgres tables. Users can choose between row and column-oriented storage at table creation time.