Multiple Pipelines vs. Single Pipeline with Groups

Use a single pipeline when you have several document sources sharing common document processing and mappings.

See Also
Use Multiple Pipelines with Conditions
Use a Single Pipeline with Groups of Processors
The Analysis Pipeline Sequence of Processors
Use a Single Pipeline with Groups of Processors
Testing your Analysis Pipeline Behavior

For example, several filesystem sources with the same data model classes (title, text, Author, etc.).

Use multiple pipelines when indexing document sources that do not share the same data model classes.

Note: Each analysis pipeline has a fixed memory consumption regardless the number of processors. Having 2 pipelines with 10 processors each, uses therefore more memory than having 1 pipeline with 20 processors.