Need an alternative to Solr which can run on most shared hosts
Question: I got a rude shock when I discovered that my company's hosts host python, but
**never JSP** under our current plans.

I developed a search program in **python (not Django)** which uses Solr. I
made use of these features (roughly in order of importance):

  * Solr CEL (inbuilt indexer for DOC,PDFs etc)
  * faceted search
  * highlighting
  * "more like this" searches
  * flexible relevance
  * returning data in very friendly formats (python objects in this case)
  * composing complex queries easily (just manipulation of text)

Could you reccomend an alternative that closely matches these features and
actually work with most shared hosts? Our hosts are Hostgator and ResellerClub
(shared).

I **shortlisted Xapian** as it has these features (but I am open to more
options). Can it be deployed in a shared environment? Is the python support
well documented and as easy?

Footnote: This problem was caused by a newb (me) to the company and a
miscommunication with my boss. The JSP part went under the radar until too
lare. And sorry if I sound rude and unhelpful. I am just nervous.


Answer: How about using a [hosted Solr
solution](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2168634/hosted-full-text-search-
solutions)? They're not free of course, but migrating to another search engine
will likely be a lengthy, complex, costly task. Not to mention that the
alternative search engine probably won't be as powerful as Solr. Or get an EC2
instance or a VPS somewhere.

Either way, it _is_ going to cost time and money, so it's a matter of figuring
out what solution is easiest and cheapest.

