A method, system and computer program product for index maintenance in a computer system comprising a plurality of nodes, a database, and an index to the database. In one embodiment, the method comprises, for a defined period of time, building a snapshot of selected change requests received by the nodes to change the database. After this defined period of time, a selection is made, based on specified criteria, whether to rebuild a new index to the database, or to add entries to a current index. When the selection is to rebuild a new index, the new index is rebuilt based on data in the database and in the change requests in the snapshot. When the selection is to add entries to a current index, entries are added to the current index based on data in the database and in the change requests in the snapshot.