Blast vs Infinity
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Blast | Infinity |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 14 · At risk | 89 · Excellent |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,073 | ★ 4,717 |
| First released | 2017 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Elasticsearch | Pinecone, Elasticsearch |
What are Blast and Infinity?
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
Infinity
Infinity is an open-source AI-native database built for embedding, full-text and hybrid search with very low latency. It is self-hosted and serves as a high-performance search and retrieval backend.
- AI-native database
- Vector and full-text search
- Hybrid retrieval
- Self-hostable
Blast vs Infinity: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: Blast's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Infinity is actively maintained. Blast is written in Go, while Infinity is built with C++. Blast is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Infinity. Blast is the more established project (first released 2017), while Infinity arrived in 2024. Infinity has the considerably larger community, at 4,717 GitHub stars versus 1,073.
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 Infinity if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in C++
Frequently asked questions
Is Blast or Infinity better?
Infinity 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 Infinity free and open-source?
Yes. Blast is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Infinity under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Blast and Infinity with Docker?
Blast: yes. Infinity: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Blast or Infinity?
Blast has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Infinity. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.