Blast vs Toshi
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Blast | Toshi |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 14 · At risk | 79 · Good |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,073 | ★ 4,256 |
| First released | 2017 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Elasticsearch | Elasticsearch |
What are Blast and Toshi?
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
Toshi
Toshi is a self-hosted full-text search server that exposes an Elasticsearch-like JSON REST API on top of the Tantivy search engine. It targets developers who want a simple, fast search service in Rust.
- JSON REST API
- Tantivy-backed indexing
- Fast Rust core
- Simple to run
Blast vs Toshi: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: Blast's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Toshi is actively maintained. Blast is written in Go, while Toshi is built with Rust. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Blast versus MIT for Toshi. Toshi is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Blast. Toshi has the considerably larger community, at 4,256 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 Toshi if…
- Lightweight search server
- Familiar API style
Watch out for
- Less mature than ES
- Smaller feature set
Frequently asked questions
Is Blast or Toshi better?
Toshi 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 Toshi free and open-source?
Yes. Blast is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Toshi under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Blast and Toshi with Docker?
Blast: yes. Toshi: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Blast or Toshi?
Toshi has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Blast. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.