Welcome to the Searchcraft FAQ Hub
we’ve gathered the most common questions from developers, product teams, and businesses, and packed them with straightforward, actionable answers. This page is your kickstart to discovering if Searchcraft is a good fit for your crew. Let’s chart a course through the cosmos and ensure no question goes unanswered!
What is Searchcraft?
Searchcraft is a developer tool, available as both a SaaS and installable solution, designed to implement powerful search functionality quickly and cost-effectively. It removes the complexities of backend search architecture, allowing front-end developers to integrate and customize high-performance search without specialized knowledge. Searchcraft empowers teams to deliver seamless, scalable search experiences tailored to their product needs.
Why Choose Searchcraft?
We understand that not every product team has dedicated search engineers on hand. With Searchcraft, advanced engineering knowledge is no longer a barrier. Our platform abstracts the complexities of backend search architecture, giving you access to a robust, reliable search that’s simple to implement and maintain.
How does Searchcraft improve upon traditional search tools?
Searchcraft is designed specifically for front-end, Typescript developers with minimal backend or search expertise, making it easy to implement and manage advanced search functionality. Unlike traditional tools, it also empowers non-developers to fine-tune search settings with intuitive management features.
Technically speaking, Searchcraft leverages Rust for both its indexing library and application layer, offering faster performance and a lower memory footprint than Java-based engines like Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, and Apache Solr. While these engines rely on the Apache Lucene library, which is powerful but limited by Java’s high memory costs and reliance on garbage collection, Searchcraft uses a Lucene-like inverted index architecture. This allows for faster response times, reduced cluster requirements, and up to 10x the speed of Elasticsearch in benchmarks. Additionally, Searchcraft employs a more efficient approach to spell correction and fuzzy matching, delivering accurate results without the need for extensive infrastructure.
Who is Searchcraft designed for?
Searchcraft is designed for front-end developers, product teams, marketing teams, and business development teams seeking to implement powerful search without backend complexity. It’s ideal for teams aiming to increase revenue, identify new markets, and uncover untapped opportunities through advanced, customizable search. With intuitive management features, Searchcraft empowers both technical and non-technical users to fine-tune search functionality, making it a versatile tool for growth and discovery.
Is Searchcraft a fully SaaS solution, or is it available as an on-premise tool?
Searchcraft offers both SaaS and on-premise options. Teams can choose the fully-managed SaaS solution for easy deployment and maintenance or opt for the installable on-premise version for complete control and data sovereignty. This flexibility allows Searchcraft to meet the needs of diverse business environments and security requirements.
What frameworks and languages does Searchcraft support?
Searchcraft currently supports React, Typescript, and Vanilla JS for seamless front-end integration. Solid JS, Vue, Angular, Ruby on Rails, Laravel, Kotlin, Swift, and React Native are also in active development and will be available soon, expanding Searchcraft’s compatibility across more frameworks and platforms.
How does Searchcraft handle data ingestion from different databases or CMS platforms?
Searchcraft offers flexible data ingestion options, including direct integrations with popular CMS platforms and tools for migrating data from databases like Postgres and MySQL. For non-integrated systems, Searchcraft can perform scheduled data pulls to keep search indexes up-to-date, ensuring compatibility with diverse data sources.
How does Searchcraft manage typo tolerance and fuzzy matching?
Searchcraft achieves ultra-fast, typo-tolerant search using a Levenshtein distance algorithm which allows for efficient, real-time spell correction. Unlike the BK-Tree approach used by traditional search engines like Elasticsearch and OpenSearch, Searchcraft optimizes candidate generation and pre-calculation, resulting in faster and more accurate fuzzy matching.
How customizable is Searchcraft in terms of search parameters and relevance tuning?
Searchcraft offers extensive customization options for search parameters and relevance tuning, allowing you to tailor search functionality precisely to your needs. You can adjust field weighting, define custom synonym mappings, and configure stop-words to prioritize specific content and improve relevancy. These tools provide granular control over search behavior, enabling you to create a search experience that aligns with your product’s unique goals and user expectations.
What analytics and insights does Searchcraft provide to help me optimize search?
Searchcraft provides a suite of analytics tools to help you optimize search performance and user engagement. With real-time insights into user behavior, popular search terms, and query performance, you can track trends, identify high-volume searches, and monitor response times.
Does Searchcraft offer a free tier or trial?
Yes, Searchcraft offers a free tier, called Launchpad, in our managed cloud offering—allowing you to get up and running quickly and at no cost. This tier provides core search functionality to help you explore and test Searchcraft’s capabilities in a fully managed environment.
For organizations needing on-premise installations or those packaging Searchcraft as part of their product, we provide downloadable binaries, also available at no cost. If you’re integrating Searchcraft into a SaaS product, we offer flexible licensing partnerships tailored to your needs. Additionally, on-demand support options are available to assist with installation, customization, and ongoing performance optimization.
How do I get started with Searchcraft?
Getting started with Searchcraft is simple. Sign up for our free Launchpad tier to begin exploring Searchcraft’s managed cloud offering and core features. From there, you can access comprehensive documentation, SDKs, and code examples to integrate Searchcraft seamlessly into your application. For organizations requiring an on-premise setup or downloadable binaries, reach out to us to access installation resources and licensing options. With flexible setup options and detailed guides, Searchcraft makes it easy to get powerful search up and running in no time.
