Elasticsearch vs Quickwit
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
Quickwit
Cloud-native search engine for logs and traces
| Feature | Elasticsearch | Quickwit |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Elastic-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Java | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 77,808 | ★ 11,471 |
| First released | 2010 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Algolia, Splunk | Splunk, Elasticsearch |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Elasticsearch or Quickwit better?
Neither is universally better. Elasticsearch has the larger community, while Quickwit is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Elasticsearch and Quickwit free and open-source?
Yes. Elasticsearch is licensed under Elastic-2.0 and Quickwit under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Elasticsearch and Quickwit with Docker?
Elasticsearch: yes. Quickwit: yes.