Marginalia Search 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?
Marginalia Search
Independent search engine focused on the non-commercial web
VS
Milvus
Open-source vector database built for scalable similarity search
| Feature | Marginalia Search | Milvus |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Java | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 4,096 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,892 | ★ 45,556 |
| First released | 2021 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Google Search | Pinecone, Elasticsearch |
Why pick each one
Choose Marginalia Search if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.9k GitHub stars)
- Written in Java
Frequently asked questions
Is Marginalia Search or Milvus better?
Neither is universally better. Milvus has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Marginalia Search and Milvus free and open-source?
Yes. Marginalia Search is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Milvus under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Marginalia Search and Milvus with Docker?
Marginalia Search: yes. Milvus: yes.