Pagefind 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?
Pagefind
Static-site search that runs fully in the browser
VS
Quickwit
Cloud-native search engine for logs and traces
| Feature | Pagefind | Quickwit |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,390 | ★ 11,471 |
| First released | 2022 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Algolia, Elasticsearch | Splunk, Elasticsearch |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Pagefind or Quickwit better?
Neither is universally better. Quickwit has the larger community, while Pagefind is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Pagefind and Quickwit free and open-source?
Yes. Pagefind is licensed under MIT and Quickwit under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pagefind and Quickwit with Docker?
Pagefind: check the project docs for container support. Quickwit: yes.