Database support
django-watson uses the built-in search capabilities of your database to provide fast high-quality full text search results. Because of this, there are a few database-specific notes you should be aware of.
The database backend is configured using the WATSON_BACKEND setting. It defaults to "watson.backends.AdaptiveSearchBackend", which auto-detects the correct backend for your configured database. You can skip the auto-detection process by setting the backend name to the correct backend for your database.
django-watson takes advantage of PostgreSQL's built-in full text indexes to provide excellent search capabilities.
Speed: Excellent
Ranking: Supported
Prefix matching: Supported
Backend: "watson.backends.PostgresSearchBackend"
django-watson uses MySQL's full text indexes on a MyISAM table to provide good search capabilities.
Speed: Good
Ranking: Supported
Prefix matching: Supported
Backend: "watson.backends.MySQLSearchBackend"
django-watson works with other database backends, but uses simple regular expressions to perform the searches. As such, it's only really good for development on these backends, and won't hold up to serious production use:
Speed: Poor
Ranking: Not supported
Prefix matching: Not supported
Backend: "watson.backends.RegexSearchBackend"