Exploring Retrieval Approaches: Vector Search vs. Reasoning-Based Retrieval

Key Points

• 1The author was trying to build a system to answer questions about long technical articles, not because of the
• 2 hype, but due to their own needs.
• 3The author built a simple comparison between vector-based RAG and reasoning-based PageIndex, and noticed key differences in their approaches and performance.
• 4Vector-based RAG works well for speed and
• 5 answers, while PageIndex provides cleaner reasoning and is better suited for single, structured documents.
• 6The author is now interested in exploring ways to combine the two approaches, using vector search to find relevant documents and then applying PageIndex within those documents.