It really comes down to you. Many people run a trunk version of Solr in production. Some never would. Generally, bugs are fixed quickly, and trunk is pretty stable. The main issue is index format changes and upgrades. If you use trunk you generally have to be willing to reindex to upgrade. That's one nice thing about this Alpha - we are saying that unless there is a really bad bug, you will be able to upgrade to future versions without reindexing.
Most of the code itself has been in dev and use for years - so it's not so risky in my opinion. It's almost more about Java APIs and what not than code stability when we say Alpha. In fact, just read this http://www.lucidimagination.com/blog/2012/07/03/4-0-alpha-whats-in-a-name/ That should help clarify what this release is. On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 6:51 AM, John Field <jfi...@astreetpress.com> wrote: > Hi, we are considering a long-term project (likely lifecycle of > several years) with an initial production release in approximately > three months. > > We're intending to use Solr 3.6.0, with a view for upgrading to 4.0 > upon stable release. > > However, http://lucene.apache.org/solr/ now has 4.0-ALPHA as the main > download, implying this version is for general use. > > But on the other hand, the release notes state "This is an alpha > release for early adopters." and http://wiki.apache.org/solr/Solr4.0 > gives a timescale of 60 days minimum before final release. > > We'd like to use 4.0 features such as near real-time updates, but > haven't identified these as must-haves for the initial release. > > Given that our first production release is likely to occur a month > after that 60 days, is 4.0-ALPHA suitable for general product > development, or is it recommended to stick with 3.6.0 and accept an > upgrade cost when 4.0 is > stable? > > (Perhaps this hinges on understanding why 4.0-ALPHA is now the main > download option). > > Thanks. > -- - Mark http://www.lucidimagination.com
