Blast vs bleve
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Blast | bleve |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 14 · At risk | 93 · Excellent |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,073 | ★ 11,228 |
| First released | 2017 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Elasticsearch | Elasticsearch, Algolia |
What are Blast and bleve?
Blast
Blast is a full-text search and indexing server written in Go and built on the Bleve library, with support for clustering through the Raft consensus algorithm. It exposes both gRPC and HTTP APIs for indexing and searching documents.
- Distributed clustering
- Bleve-based indexing
- gRPC and HTTP APIs
- Raft consensus
bleve
An embeddable modern full-text search and indexing library that lets developers add search to applications without running a separate server. It supports analyzers, faceting, and scoring out of the box.
- Embeddable index
- Text analyzers
- Faceted search
- Pluggable storage
Blast vs bleve: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: Blast's repository is archived and no longer developed, while bleve is actively maintained. Both projects are written in Go. Bleve is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Blast. Bleve is the more established project (first released 2014), while Blast arrived in 2017. Bleve has the considerably larger community, at 11,228 GitHub stars versus 1,073. Blast lists first-class Docker deployment; bleve does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Blast if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Choose bleve if…
- No separate server
- Pure Go integration
Watch out for
- Library not turnkey app
- Manual scaling
Frequently asked questions
Is Blast or bleve better?
bleve is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Blast if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Blast and bleve free and open-source?
Yes. Blast is licensed under Apache-2.0 and bleve under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Blast and bleve with Docker?
Blast: yes. bleve: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Blast or bleve?
bleve has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Blast. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.