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Solr vs Swagger UI: What are the differences?
Introduction:
Key differences between Solr and Swagger UI are outlined below:
1. **Purpose**: Solr is a search platform built on Apache Lucene, used for indexing and searching data, whereas Swagger UI is a tool for visualizing and interacting with APIs, primarily used for API documentation and testing.
2. **Functionality**: Solr is designed for full-text search capabilities and server-side search applications, enabling powerful search functionalities like faceted search, whereas Swagger UI focuses on providing a graphical interface for exploring API endpoints and making API requests.
3. **Technology**: Solr is written in Java and widely used for creating powerful search engines, while Swagger UI is primarily a JavaScript library that generates interactive documentation for APIs based on OpenAPI Specification (formerly Swagger Specification).
4. **Usage**: Solr is commonly utilized in enterprise search, e-commerce platforms, and large-scale data search applications, providing scalable and efficient search capabilities, whereas Swagger UI is often used during the API development process to design, document, and test APIs.
5. **Deployment**: Solr is typically deployed as a standalone search server or can be integrated into existing applications as a search component, running as a separate service or module, whereas Swagger UI is integrated into API projects to provide interactive API documentation and testing capabilities within the application itself.
6. **Customization**: Solr allows for extensive customization and configuration of search functionalities, including schema design and relevance tuning, while Swagger UI offers limited customization options for the visual representation of API endpoints and input parameters.
In Summary, Solr and Swagger UI differ in their primary purpose, functionality, technology stack, usage scenarios, deployment methods, and customization options.
From a StackShare Community member: "I just started working for a start-up and we are in desperate need of better documentation for our API. Currently our API docs is in a README.md file. We are evaluating Postman and Swagger UI. Since there are many options and I was wondering what other StackSharers would recommend?"
I use Postman because of the ease of team-management, using workspaces and teams, runner, collections, environment variables, test-scripts (post execution), variable management (pre and post execution), folders (inside collections, for better management of APIs), newman, easy-ci-integration (and probably a few more things that I am not able to recall right now).
I use Swagger UI because it's an easy tool for end-consumers to visualize and test our APIs. It focuses on that ! And it's directly embedded and delivered with the APIs. Postman's built-in tools aren't bad, but their main focus isn't the documentation and also, they are hosted outside the project.
I recommend Postman because it's easy to use with history option. Also, it has very great features like runner, collections, test scripts runners, defining environment variables and simple exporting and importing data.
Pros of Solr
- Powerful35
- Indexing and searching22
- Scalable20
- Customizable19
- Enterprise Ready13
- Restful5
- Apache Software Foundation5
- Great Search engine4
- Security built-in2
- Easy Operating1
Pros of Swagger UI
- Open Source49
- Can execute api calls from the documentation34
- Free to use29
- Customizable19
- Easy to implement in .Net14
- Mature, clean spec13
- API Visualization12
- Coverage9
- Scaffolding6
- Easy to use6
- Vibrant and active community5
- Elegant4
- Adopted by tm forum api3
- Clear for React2
- Api1
- Can deploy API to AWS API Gateway and AWS Lambda1
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Cons of Solr
Cons of Swagger UI
- Need to learn YAML and RAML3
- Documentation doesn't look that good2
- Doesn't generate code snippets in different languages1
- You don’t actually get in-line error highlighting1
- Does not support hypermedia1