Using CLucene vs java lucene

Question

I am currently using Java lucene for one of the project and getting OK kind of performance. I am looking for C/C++ option for lucene and came across CLucene on sourceforge.

But I wanted to check if CLucene is as stable and reliable as Java lucene and having all features supported by Java Lucene, also is it apache licensed and actively supported ? if YES why I dont have option to download CLucene on apache Lucene site (on apache lucene site I have lucene.net option though).

Would like to understand more on usage of CLucene for enterprise software.

Answer 1

CLucene is available under the Apache License v2.0 and is hosted at sourceforge. It is not downloadable from Lucene website because CLucene is an independant project. However, Lucy, which is a C port of Lucene (targetting dynamic languages), is available from Lucene website because it is a sub-project of Lucene. Same applies for Lucene.NET.

Unless you are forced not to use a JVM language, I would recommend you use the Java version.

All developments are done for the Java version and then sometimes backported to other ports such as CLucene. As a consequence, lots of useful features are still only available in the Java version (for example function queries are not available in CLucene).

Regarding performance, C/C++ might sometimes be faster than Java, but there are a lot of pieces of code in the Java version which use very neat algorithms to improve performance, such as:

• levenshtein automata for fuzzy queries,
• a non-blocking flushing mechanism to improve indexing throughput.

Last but not least, the Java version is the most tested one and used in a lot of very high-traffic websites such as LinkedIn or Twitter.