HN’s search functionality is now powered by Algolia (YC W14) instead of Octopart (YC W07).
While it’s sad to say goodbye to something we built with love, I for one welcome a new player with the energy and motivation to build a search engine that does HN justice.
When we launched HNSearch it was because we wanted to show the world what we could do with our search infrastructure. We had built a powerful search database (ThriftDB) and we were eager to see how far we could take it. Unfortunately, we never had the time to focus on improving HNSearch or on getting users for ThriftDB so it’s time to sunset those products.[1]
In terms of Octopart on the other hand, the future has never looked brighter. We followed our own path and and now we’ve assembled an outstanding team that’s passionate about opening up access to part data for a new generation of hardware hackers.[2] Our proprietary search infrastructure is still one of the best we’ve seen and we have some ambitious plans for how to make it even better.
HN, thanks for the memories. We are very proud to have powered search for such an incredible community.
Andres
[1] We’ll continue to support hnsearch.com until March 15 to give developers time to migrate their apps to Algolia’s API (https://hn.algolia.io/api).
[2] Octopart is hiring. Come join us!!!! (http://octopart.com/jobs)