Hash Indexes vs Full Text Indexes

Developers should use hash indexes when they need to perform frequent exact-match searches, such as retrieving user data by a unique ID or looking up cached values, as they offer O(1) average time complexity for these operations meets developers should use full text indexes when building applications that involve searching large volumes of text data, such as e-commerce product searches, content management systems, or document repositories. Here's our take.

Hash Indexes

Nice Pick

Developers should use hash indexes when they need to perform frequent exact-match searches, such as retrieving user data by a unique ID or looking up cached values, as they offer O(1) average time complexity for these operations

Pros

• They are ideal for applications with high read performance requirements for specific keys, like session management or real-time analytics, but should be avoided for queries involving ranges, partial matches, or ordered data retrieval
• Related to: database-indexing, hash-tables

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Full Text Indexes

Developers should use Full Text Indexes when building applications that involve searching large volumes of text data, such as e-commerce product searches, content management systems, or document repositories

Pros

• They are essential for improving search performance and user experience by enabling fast, relevance-based queries instead of slow LIKE operations, which can be inefficient on large datasets
• Related to: sql, elasticsearch

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Hash Indexes is a concept while Full Text Indexes is a database. We picked Hash Indexes based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Hash Indexes wins

Based on overall popularity. Hash Indexes is more widely used, but Full Text Indexes excels in its own space.