Quickwit vs Toshi
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Quickwit
Cloud-native search engine for logs and traces
VS
Toshi
Full-text search server built on the Tantivy engine
| Feature | Quickwit | Toshi |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 93 · Excellent | 79 · Good |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 11,670 | ★ 4,256 |
| First released | 2021 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Splunk, Elasticsearch | Elasticsearch |
What are Quickwit and Toshi?
Quickwit
Quickwit is an open-source, cloud-native search engine optimized for log management, distributed tracing and analytics on large datasets stored in object storage. It is designed to be cost efficient at scale.
- Search directly on object storage
- Optimized for logs and traces
- Decoupled compute and storage
- Elasticsearch-compatible API
Toshi
Toshi is a self-hosted full-text search server that exposes an Elasticsearch-like JSON REST API on top of the Tantivy search engine. It targets developers who want a simple, fast search service in Rust.
- JSON REST API
- Tantivy-backed indexing
- Fast Rust core
- Simple to run
Quickwit vs Toshi: key differences
Both projects are written in Rust. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Quickwit versus MIT for Toshi. Toshi is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Quickwit. Toshi is the more established project (first released 2018), while Quickwit arrived in 2021. Quickwit has the considerably larger community, at 11,670 GitHub stars versus 4,256.
Why pick each one
Choose Quickwit if…
- Very cost effective at scale
- Modern Rust codebase
Watch out for
- Focused on append-only data
Choose Toshi if…
- Lightweight search server
- Familiar API style
Watch out for
- Less mature than ES
- Smaller feature set
Frequently asked questions
Is Quickwit or Toshi better?
Neither is universally better. Quickwit has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Quickwit and Toshi free and open-source?
Yes. Quickwit is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Toshi under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Quickwit and Toshi with Docker?
Quickwit: yes. Toshi: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Quickwit or Toshi?
Toshi has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Quickwit. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.