> I get where you are coming from, but Lucene is a building block, a library and cannot be immediately used as a valuable service. ES can be used by quite high

> I get where you are coming from, but Lucene is a building block, a library and cannot be immediately used as a valuable service. ES can be used by quite high level developers to implement scalable solutions. Your argument makes no sense. Even if we accept the thesis that building block components are up for grabs because they cannot be immediately used as valuable services... Well, neither can services. You need to design a system architecture, figure out how and if a component plays a role, pick a component, config the component, setup a deployment ans scaling strategy, config and integrate metrics and health checks, ingest data, monitor the service, etc etc etc. And if we actually want to make an objective comparison between libraries and services... Well, in the end they are all components of a larger system. So, obviously there is no objective distinction. There's only intellectual property and companies being hypocrite wanting to have their cake and eating it too. They can't get it both ways.