Elasticsearch vs Milvus
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Elasticsearch
Distributed search and analytics engine
VS
Milvus
Open-source vector database built for scalable similarity search
| Feature | Elasticsearch | Milvus |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Elastic-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Java | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 4,096 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 77,808 | ★ 45,556 |
| First released | 2010 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Algolia, Splunk | Pinecone, Elasticsearch |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Elasticsearch or Milvus better?
Neither is universally better. Elasticsearch has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Elasticsearch and Milvus free and open-source?
Yes. Elasticsearch is licensed under Elastic-2.0 and Milvus under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Elasticsearch and Milvus with Docker?
Elasticsearch: yes. Milvus: yes.