Milvus vs tinysearch
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
tinysearch
Tiny WebAssembly-powered static site search
| Feature | Milvus | tinysearch |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 45,556 | ★ 2,953 |
| First released | 2019 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Pinecone, Elasticsearch | Algolia |
Why pick each one
Choose tinysearch if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (3k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Milvus or tinysearch better?
Neither is universally better. Milvus has the larger community, while tinysearch is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Milvus and tinysearch free and open-source?
Yes. Milvus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tinysearch under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Milvus and tinysearch with Docker?
Milvus: yes. tinysearch: check the project docs for container support.