CMS Watch Enterprise Search Vendor List
There are hundreds of products in the Enterprise Search marketplace. To make your life easier, we list only 20 of them, divided into 8 categories. These are not the "best" search tools, simply -- in our judgment -- the most significant.
You can find a longer discussion of these categories -- along with independent profiles of these products -- in The 2008 Enterprise Search Report.
Platform Vendors
After various mergers, there are just two, each with multidimensional information management and access technology platforms. The platform vendors offer customers comprehensive (read: complex) frameworks on which search applications can be constructed.
- Autonomy - IDOL Server
- HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA & Cambridge, UK -- Mentions: 14 - Fast Search & Transfer - Enterprise Search Platform (ESP)
- HQ: Oslo, Norway -- Mentions: 26
Infrastructure Vendors
These are names you recognize, and your enterprise probably licenses products from them. Each wants to "own" the information management domain at their major customers, and each now recognizes the importance of search in that strategy.
- SAP - NetWeaver Enterprise Search
- HQ: Walldorf, Germany -- Mentions: 5 - Microsoft - SharePoint Search Server
- HQ: Redmond, WA, USA -- Mentions: 19 - IBM - OmniFind Enterprise Edition
- HQ: White Plains, NY, USA -- Mentions: 8 - Oracle - Secure Enterprise Search 10g
- HQ: Redwood Shores, CA, USA -- Mentions: 8
Specialized Search Players
A plethora of specialized suppliers have emerged to fulfill more specific needs, and some have now grown into large, thriving companies. With some exceptions, they tend to be higher priced and implementations can range from $50 - 250k or more.
- ISYS - ISYS Search Suite
- HQ: Sydney, Australia -- Mentions: 3 - Vivisimo - Vivisimo Velocity
- HQ: Pittsburgh, PA, US -- Mentions: 3 - Endeca - Information Access Platform
- HQ: Cambridge, MA, US -- Mentions: 7 - Funnelback - Funnelback Server
- HQ: Canberra, Australia -- Mentions: 2 - dtSearch - dtSearch
- HQ: Bethesda, MD, US -- Mentions: 1 - InQuira - InQuira
- HQ: San Bruno, CA, US - Siderean Software - Seamark Navigator
- HQ: El Segundo, CA, USA -- Mentions: 1 - Stratify - Discovery System
- HQ: Mountain View, CA, US - Recommind - Mindserver Enterprise Search
- HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA - Open Text - Discovery Server
- HQ: Waterloo, Canada -- Mentions: 2 - Apache Project - Lucene 2.3.0
- HQ: Global project -- Mentions: 1 - Exalead - exalead one:enterprise
- HQ: Paris, FR -- Mentions: 4
Turn-key Search
If you don't want the hassle and expense of installing and tuning a high-end search system, you can always turn to a hosted ("SaaS") solution, or a search "appliance" that you plug into your network.
- Google - Google Search Appliance
- HQ: Mountain View, CA, US -- Mentions: 32 - Thunderstone - Thunderstone Search Appliance
- HQ: Cleveland, OH, US -- Mentions: 4 - VisualSciences - Search
- HQ: San Diego, CA, USA -- Mentions: 4
Basic Search Vendors
Do you really need a lot of fancy search bells and whistles? Maybe not, and in fact, they could just get in the way, especially for simple Website or SharePoint search. Those are the scenarios these vendors target.
- Coveo - Coveo Enterprise Search
- HQ: Québec, PQ, Canada -- Mentions: 4 - Innerprise - ES.NET 2004
- HQ: Scottsdale, AZ, US - Mondosoft - MondoSearch
- HQ: Copenhagen, Denmark -- Mentions: 4
Open Source
These toolsets are less "out-of-the-box," than commercial counterparts, but they are typically well engineered and community-supported.
- Apache Project - Jakarta Lucene
- HQ: Global project -- Mentions: 4 - Swish - Swish-e
- HQ: Global project - ht:Dig - ht://Dig
- HQ: Global project
Wondering how we compile these lists? Review our criteria.