Is it a good idea to use gzcompress

Question

I have a forum which allows users to enter large amounts of text along with (sanitized) html (and/or markdown) and links, etc. Everything is sanitised and checked before it is stored in the database.

Would it be a good idea to use gzcompress. I've heard that it is not good if you intend to search this text. Should I compress the content before saving it to the database and use only the title and tags for searching, or does it not matter?

Answer 1

I would store the content as text. Then, if space becomes a problem, you can explore an optimization like this later.

You may find this discussion worth reading: Planning for efficiency early vs Premature optimization