Quickwit vs Tantivy

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureQuickwitTantivy
CategorySearch EnginesSearch Engines
LicenseApache-2.0MIT
LanguageRustRust
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM1,024 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarysource, binary
GitHub stars★ 11,471★ 15,656
First released20212016
ReplacesSplunk, ElasticsearchElasticsearch

Why pick each one

Choose Quickwit if…

  • Very cost effective at scale
  • Modern Rust codebase
Quickwit details

Choose Tantivy if…

  • Very fast
  • Embeddable in apps
Tantivy details

Frequently asked questions

Is Quickwit or Tantivy better?

Neither is universally better. Tantivy 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 Quickwit and Tantivy free and open-source?

Yes. Quickwit is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Tantivy under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Quickwit and Tantivy with Docker?

Quickwit: yes. Tantivy: check the project docs for container support.

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