Virtual replicas are always a great choice for creating multiple sort orders, though it is important to note that these won't behave in the same way as standard replicas. This is because virtual replicas are not actually indices, and standard replicas are. As a result virtual replicas have different functionality and some limitations that standard replicas don't have. The main benefit of virtual replicas is that you don't increase your record usage when using them, so they're a great option when the limitations don't impact your use case.
Unlike standard replicas, virtual replicas don’t copy their primary index’s content. While they slightly increase the primary index’s size (less than 10 MB per millions of records), they don’t affect the number of records on your app.
There is a table that compares standard and virtual replicas on this documentation.
Additionally, here are some articles about virtual replicas that we recommend checking while considering a change:
- Does distinct work with virtual replicas?
- Why is my virtual replica returning less search results?
- Why am I getting less hits in the virtual replica?
- Why is the nbPages not accurate for the virtual replica index?
- Why does my virtual replica not return the same results as my main index?
Finally, we advise starting by creating a virtual replica on a staging or test environment to better understand if this replica will meet your requirements.