Version 4.0 of SearchWP is getting closer and closer! ? In preparation of the release there are some exciting updates to share. In this post we’ll cover the initial performance benchmarks that have been run to date.
SearchWP’s primary operations are indexing and searching so those are the two benchmarks discussed in this post.
Index build times (in seconds, lower is better)
The index, indexer, and indexing process have all been completely rebuilt in SearchWP 4.0. Based on the new data models in use the overall indexing speed has been greatly improved.
Note: this data is based on an initial index build. SearchWP’s indexer applies very small delta updates to content changes over time.
Take for example this benchmark with a site that has about 1,000 Posts and Pages that have content ranging from a few hundred words to a few thousand:
For the same site with the same Engine configuration, the indexer in SearchWP 4.0 is running on average in about 36% of the time it takes to run in SearchWP 3.x (about 2.7 times faster)!
The indexer running via WP CLI is even more impressive, taking only 20% of the time it takes for SearchWP 3.x to build its version of the index. That’s about 5x faster! ?
Another benchmark to consider is that of a larger site with 10,000 entries (again time is in seconds):
Improving the speed of the indexer was a large focus when working on SearchWP 4.0, with the hope being that a faster index build process the faster your website is displaying the best possible search results.
Search query times (in seconds, lower is better)
Indexing is a significant part of what SearchWP does, but the most important part is returning the best search results quickly. SearchWP 3.x did a good job that, but there was however room for improvement both in query execution time and query complexity itself.
Let’s examine some benchmark results when performing various searches on our site with 10,000 entries:
Note: SearchWP’s AND logic handling plays a part in decreased query time for increased term count.
Examining this results set we can observe a few things:
- SearchWP 4.0 performs search queries faster than 3.x
- Search query times are in many cases at least 2x faster!
- Observable speed benefit increases as the number of search terms increases
Please note that these benchmarks are completely dependent on source content and search terms. While the source content and search terms were identical for both test series, actual differences on customer sites will likely vary.
There’s even more in 4.0!
While searching and indexing are arguably the most important features of SearchWP (and both have been improved significantly in version 4.0) there is even more to cover as we approach the release date!
Stay tuned for a few more overview posts outlining the latest and greatest coming to SearchWP 4.0 ?
