#hybrid-search

#hybrid-search

Developers can now use search and vector search functionality in MongoDB Community Edition and Enterprise Server. These capabilities were previously only available in the Atlas cloud service. During the MongoDB.local NYC conference, MongoDB announced that search and vector search will be available for local installations. The previews are intended for development and testing. Until now, developers and organizations that wanted to use these features had to rely on the fully managed MongoDB Atlas cloud service.

A key part of the redesign was improving how results are retrieved. Traditional keyword search excels at matching exact product attributes, for example, a query like "pesto pasta sauce 8oz" benefits from precise lexical matching. But broader intent-driven queries, such as "healthy foods", are better handled through semantic retrieval, which understands relationships between terms and concepts. By combining both approaches in Postgres, Instacart can balance precision (returning only relevant results) with recall (capturing as many relevant items as possible), ensuring that customers see both the exact products they're looking for and meaningful options for discovery.