bleve vs Quickwit
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Quickwit
Cloud-native search engine for logs and traces
| Feature | bleve | Quickwit |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 93 · Excellent | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 11,226 | ★ 11,666 |
| First released | 2014 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Elasticsearch, Algolia | Splunk, Elasticsearch |
What are bleve and Quickwit?
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
Quickwit
Quickwit is an open-source, cloud-native search engine optimized for log management, distributed tracing and analytics on large datasets stored in object storage. It is designed to be cost efficient at scale.
- Search directly on object storage
- Optimized for logs and traces
- Decoupled compute and storage
- Elasticsearch-compatible API
bleve vs Quickwit: key differences
Bleve is written in Go, while Quickwit is built with Rust. Bleve is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Quickwit. Bleve is the more established project (first released 2014), while Quickwit arrived in 2021. Quickwit lists first-class Docker deployment; bleve does not.
Why pick each one
Choose bleve if…
- No separate server
- Pure Go integration
Watch out for
- Library not turnkey app
- Manual scaling
Choose Quickwit if…
- Very cost effective at scale
- Modern Rust codebase
Watch out for
- Focused on append-only data
Frequently asked questions
Is bleve or Quickwit better?
Neither is universally better. Quickwit has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are bleve and Quickwit free and open-source?
Yes. bleve is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Quickwit under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run bleve and Quickwit with Docker?
bleve: check the project docs for container support. Quickwit: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, bleve or Quickwit?
bleve has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Quickwit. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.