Algolia
Hosted search-as-a-service platform delivering real-time, full-text search for apps and websites
Manticore Search
Fast open-source database built for high-performance search
Manticore Search is a high-performance, SQL-first database optimized for full-text search. A cost-efficient alternative to Elasticsearch with modern multithreading and query parallelization.
Overview
What is Manticore Search?
Manticore Search is a high-performance database purpose-built for search workloads. Forked from Sphinx in 2017, it delivers exceptional speed—up to 182x faster than MySQL for small datasets and 29x faster than Elasticsearch for log analytics—while maintaining cost efficiency through intelligent resource utilization.
Key Capabilities
Manticore is SQL-first with MySQL protocol compatibility, making adoption seamless for teams familiar with relational databases. It features modern multithreading architecture that fully utilizes CPU cores, automatic secondary indexing via PGM-index, and a cost-based query optimizer. The database supports both row-wise and columnar storage, enabling efficient handling of datasets from small to those exceeding available RAM.
Full-text search capabilities include over 20 operators, custom ranking, fuzzy search, faceted search, geo-spatial search, and vector search. NLP features like stemming, lemmatization, and proper Chinese segmentation are built-in. Real-time inserts ensure immediate document availability, while multi-master replication and load balancing provide high availability.
Who Uses It
Organizations like Craigslist, Socialgist, and PubChem rely on Manticore for search and stream filtering. It's ideal for teams seeking Elasticsearch-level functionality with superior performance and lower infrastructure costs.
Highlights
SQL-first with MySQL protocol compatibility and clients in 8+ languages
Modern multithreading with automatic query parallelization across CPU cores
Row-wise and columnar storage options for datasets from MB to TB scale
Real-time indexing, multi-master replication, and cost-based query optimization
Pros
- Exceptional performance: up to 182x faster than MySQL, 29x faster than Elasticsearch in benchmarks
- Low resource footprint: starts with ~40MB RAM, efficient CPU and memory utilization
- Rich full-text capabilities: 20+ operators, fuzzy search, NLP, geo-spatial, vector search
- Flexible integration: MySQL protocol, HTTP JSON API, Elasticsearch-compatible writes, data sync from multiple sources
Considerations
- Not fully ACID-compliant; supports isolated transactions but lacks complete transactional guarantees
- Smaller ecosystem and community compared to Elasticsearch
- Forked from Sphinx in 2017; may require migration effort for existing Sphinx users
- Columnar storage provides lower performance than row-wise for certain query types
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider Manticore Search, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Teams seeking Elasticsearch alternatives with better performance and lower infrastructure costs
- Log analytics and real-time search applications requiring high throughput
- Organizations with existing MySQL expertise wanting powerful full-text search
- Applications needing both small-dataset speed and large-dataset columnar storage scalability
Not ideal when
- Use cases requiring strict ACID compliance and full transactional integrity
- Teams heavily invested in the Elasticsearch ecosystem and plugin architecture
- Projects needing extensive out-of-the-box integrations beyond the provided connectors
- Organizations without technical resources to manage database infrastructure
How teams use it
High-volume log analytics
Process and search massive log streams 29x faster than Elasticsearch with lower hardware costs and real-time query performance
E-commerce product search
Deliver instant full-text, faceted, and geo-spatial search across catalogs with custom ranking and autocomplete using familiar SQL syntax
Content filtering and monitoring
Filter streams in real-time using percolate tables or Kafka integration to match documents against stored queries for alerting and classification
Multi-tenant SaaS search
Deploy cost-efficient search infrastructure with multi-master replication, load balancing, and minimal RAM overhead for scalable tenant isolation
Tech snapshot
C++77%
HTML10%
C5%
PHP2%
CMake2%
Yacc1%
Frequently asked questions
How does Manticore Search compare to Elasticsearch?
Manticore offers significantly faster performance (up to 29x for log analytics) with lower resource consumption. It uses SQL as its native syntax with MySQL protocol compatibility, while Elasticsearch uses JSON-based DSL. Manticore has a smaller ecosystem but provides Elasticsearch-compatible write APIs for easier migration.
What storage options does Manticore support?
Manticore offers three storage types: row-wise (faster performance, more RAM), columnar via Manticore Columnar Library (handles datasets exceeding RAM with good performance), and docstore (minimal RAM, fetch-only without sorting/filtering). You can choose based on dataset size and query requirements.
Is Manticore Search ACID-compliant?
No, Manticore is not fully ACID-compliant. It supports isolated transactions and binary logging for safe writes, but lacks complete transactional guarantees. It's optimized for search performance rather than strict transactional consistency.
Can I migrate from MySQL or PostgreSQL to Manticore?
Yes, Manticore can sync data directly from MySQL, PostgreSQL, ODBC, XML, and CSV sources. It uses SQL syntax and supports the MySQL protocol, making it familiar for teams with relational database experience. Client libraries are available for PHP, Python, JavaScript, Java, Go, Rust, and more.
What high-availability features does Manticore provide?
Manticore includes virtually synchronous multi-master replication using the Galera library, built-in load balancing, and the ability to distribute data across servers and data centers. It also offers backup tools (manticore-backup and SQL BACKUP command) for data safety.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 11,612
- Watchers
- 11,612
- Forks
- 622
LicenseGPL-3.0
Repo age8 years old
Last commit4 hours ago
Primary languageC++
Last synced 4 hours ago