Groonga vs Weaviate
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?
Groonga
Open-source full-text search engine and column store
VS
Weaviate
Open-source vector database for semantic and AI search
| Feature | Groonga | Weaviate |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | LGPL-2.1 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | C | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 854 | ★ 16,704 |
| First released | 2009 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Elasticsearch | Pinecone, Algolia |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Groonga or Weaviate better?
Neither is universally better. Weaviate has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Groonga and Weaviate free and open-source?
Yes. Groonga is licensed under LGPL-2.1 and Weaviate under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Groonga and Weaviate with Docker?
Groonga: check the project docs for container support. Weaviate: yes.