Milvus vs Tantivy
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
Tantivy
Full-text search engine library written in Rust
| Feature | Milvus | Tantivy |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 45,556 | ★ 15,656 |
| First released | 2019 | 2016 |
| Replaces | Pinecone, Elasticsearch | Elasticsearch |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Milvus or Tantivy 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 Milvus and Tantivy free and open-source?
Yes. Milvus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Tantivy under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Milvus and Tantivy with Docker?
Milvus: yes. Tantivy: check the project docs for container support.