lnx 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 | lnx | Quickwit |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 34 · At risk | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,454 | ★ 11,670 |
| First released | 2021 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Elasticsearch, Algolia | Splunk, Elasticsearch |
What are lnx and Quickwit?
lnx
lnx is an open-source search engine server built on top of the Tantivy library that exposes a simple REST API for indexing and querying documents. It aims to be a fast, easy-to-deploy alternative for full-text search.
- Built on Tantivy
- Simple REST API
- Fast full-text search
- Typo-tolerant queries
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
lnx vs Quickwit: key differences
Both projects are written in Rust. Licensing differs — MIT for lnx versus Apache-2.0 for Quickwit. Lnx is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Quickwit. Quickwit has the considerably larger community, at 11,670 GitHub stars versus 1,454.
Why pick each one
Choose lnx if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.5k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
Choose Quickwit if…
- Very cost effective at scale
- Modern Rust codebase
Watch out for
- Focused on append-only data
Frequently asked questions
Is lnx 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 lnx and Quickwit free and open-source?
Yes. lnx is licensed under MIT and Quickwit under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run lnx and Quickwit with Docker?
lnx: yes. Quickwit: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, lnx or Quickwit?
lnx has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Quickwit. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.