Milvus 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?
Milvus
Open-source vector database built for scalable similarity search
VS
Quickwit
Cloud-native search engine for logs and traces
| Feature | Milvus | Quickwit |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 45,556 | ★ 11,471 |
| First released | 2019 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Pinecone, Elasticsearch | Splunk, Elasticsearch |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Milvus or Quickwit better?
Neither is universally better. Milvus 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 Milvus and Quickwit free and open-source?
Yes. Milvus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Quickwit under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Milvus and Quickwit with Docker?
Milvus: yes. Quickwit: yes.