PHP-fts
Full-text search engine in pure PHP, no extensions
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HN · launched May 6, 2026 · 89 upvotes (top 11%) · 1 view
Niche: search engine infrastructure and optimization tools · 58 launches, 4 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Search & retrieval
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 58 launches in search engine infrastructure and optimization tools →
Could you build this?
Yes Inverted indexing, text tokenization, and BM25 ranking algorithms in pure PHP are well-understood computer science patterns that LLMs can generate with ease.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: DuckDB with Full-Text Search extension, Meilisearch, Typesense, Loupe, TNTSearch
Concerns raised: Requires native extensions (DuckDB, Loupe need pdo_sqlite and SQLite >= 3.35.0), Not suitable for static sites (server-side indexing needed), Dependency management can hide undeclared transitive dependencies in production, Lacks stemming and advanced features like geo or typo tolerance
Feature requests: Comparative benchmarks on filter performance for SQLite FTS case, Documentation of PHPUnit version requirements, German umlaut support (ä ö ü)
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 838 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #75 of 839 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 189 days after the earliest competitor.
- GNU grep as a PHP extension · hn · 2026-04-10 · 32 upvotes · similarity 0.58
- Wilfred · github · 2026-09-25 · 14 upvotes · similarity 0.57
- Fitter · hn · 2026-07-26 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.53
- astral-html · github · 2026-10-04 · 32 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- php2shell · github · 2026-10-22 · 55 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- cascade-search · github · 2026-09-17 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- proxy · github · 2026-10-21 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.51
- Your all-in-one text engine · hn · 2026-08-20 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.51
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