The pg_search extension

Summary: The pg_search extension by ParadeDB added BM25 full-text search to Postgres. It was deprecated for new Neon projects on March 19, 2026, and retired from existing projects on September 21, 2026. Its replacement for BM25 search is the lakebase_text extension; other alternatives include tsvector, pg_trgm, and pgvector.

The pg_search extension

Deprecated BM25 full-text search extension (ParadeDB)

Warning: Neon's support for pg_search has been removed.

pg_search was deprecated for new Neon projects on March 19, 2026.

If you used pg_search: the extension was retired from existing projects on September 21, 2026. Its replacement for BM25 search on Neon is lakebase_text; see Migrate from pg_search to lakebase_text.

Depending on your use case, consider these alternatives:

Full-text search: PostgreSQL's built-in tsvector/tsquery
Fuzzy search: pg_trgm for similarity and pattern matching
Semantic/vector search: pgvector for embedding-based search
BM25 search: lakebase_text, a BM25 index for Neon, fully compatible with tsvector; or ParadeDB for continued pg_search functionality

The pg_search extension by ParadeDB added BM25 full-text search to Postgres, using inverted indexes and the @@@ operator to run keyword, phrase, fuzzy, and faceted search through SQL and a JSON query DSL. It's no longer available on Neon.

To replace pg_search with lakebase_text on Neon, see Migrate from pg_search to lakebase_text. For the full pg_search feature reference, see the ParadeDB documentation.

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