Database / Weaviate Vector database Interview questions
What is hybrid search in Weaviate?
Hybrid search combines two distinct retrieval signals, dense vector similarity and BM25 keyword scoring, into a single query and a single fused ranking, rather than requiring an application to run two separate searches and merge the results itself.
results = collection.query.hybrid( query="affordable running shoes", alpha=0.7, limit=10 )
This is a native, first-class capability in Weaviate rather than something bolted on: a single hybrid query call runs both the vector search and the BM25 keyword search internally, then fuses the two ranked lists using a configurable algorithm. Independent benchmarking has generally found hybrid search outperforming vector-only search by a meaningful margin on domain-specific content like technical documentation, legal text, and code, where exact terminology matters alongside semantic meaning.
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