bleve 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 | bleve | Toshi |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 93 · Excellent | 79 · Good |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 11,226 | ★ 4,256 |
| First released | 2014 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Elasticsearch, Algolia | Elasticsearch |
What are bleve and Toshi?
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
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
bleve vs Toshi: key differences
Bleve is written in Go, while Toshi is built with Rust. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for bleve versus MIT for Toshi. Bleve is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Toshi. Bleve is the more established project (first released 2014), while Toshi arrived in 2018. Bleve has the considerably larger community, at 11,226 GitHub stars versus 4,256. Toshi 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 Toshi if…
- Lightweight search server
- Familiar API style
Watch out for
- Less mature than ES
- Smaller feature set
Frequently asked questions
Is bleve or Toshi better?
Neither is universally better. bleve has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are bleve and Toshi free and open-source?
Yes. bleve is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Toshi under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run bleve and Toshi with Docker?
bleve: check the project docs for container support. Toshi: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, bleve or Toshi?
bleve has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Toshi. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.