External Search Engines
MySQL full-text has limits: no stemming, no synonyms, no typo tolerance, no multi-language tokenization. For advanced needs, use Elasticsearch or Meilisearch alongside MySQL.
MySQL
Intermediate
4 min read
When to Use External Search Engines
Example
-- MySQL FTS limitations:
-- No fuzzy matching ("colour" won't match "color")
-- No stemming ("running" won't match "run")
-- No synonym support
-- No multi-language tokenizers (Japanese, Chinese)
-- For these, sync MySQL data to Elasticsearch:
-- Use Logstash, Debezium CDC, or a background job Pro Tip
Use MySQL full-text for simple English search; Elasticsearch for advanced or multi-language.