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Qdrant vs turbopuffer

Qdrant: Rust vector search engine with rich payload filtering, quantization and a managed cloud. turbopuffer: Serverless vector and full-text search on object storage, priced for billions of documents.

key differences

  • Licensing: Qdrant is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0); turbopuffer is proprietary (Proprietary SaaS).
  • Transactions: Qdrant offers none ACID; turbopuffer offers limited.
  • Only Qdrant has geospatial, compression, role-based access.
  • Only turbopuffer has encryption at rest.
  • turbopuffer has a serverless option; Qdrant does not.

choose qdrant for

  • +RAG retrieval with metadata filtering
  • +Recommendation and similarity search
  • +Image and multimodal search
  • +Multi-tenant semantic search

best at · Vector search, RAG

choose turbopuffer for

  • +Per-user or per-repo indexes for AI coding and productivity tools
  • +RAG over billions of chunks
  • +Hybrid search for multi-tenant SaaS

best at · Vector search, Search, RAG

QdrantRust vector search engine with rich payload filtering, quantization and a managed cloud.
turbopufferServerless vector and full-text search on object storage, priced for billions of documents.
overview
Primary model
Vector
Vector
Also supports
Document
Search Engine, Document
Type
Database engine
Managed service
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Qdrant Solutions GmbH
turbopuffer Inc.
First release
2021
2023
Latest version
1.20.0 (Oct 22, 2026)
–
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
ProprietaryProprietary SaaS
Free tier
✓
—
popularity
WhichDB Score
35.9
26.5
Rank
#55
#112
GitHub stars
35.3K
–
Stack Overflow questions
60
–
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
None
None
ACID
None
Limited
Consistency
Tunable, Eventual
Strong, Eventual
Schema
Schemaless
Flexible
Architecture
Distributed, Client server
Serverless, Shared storage, Distributed
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
—
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
—
✓
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
AWS, Google Cloud
capabilities
Transactions
—
—
Joins
—
—
Secondary indexes
✓
✓
Full-text search
✓
✓
Vector search
✓
✓
Geospatial
✓
—
JSON
✓
✓
Change data capture
—
—
Triggers
—
—
Stored procedures
—
—
Materialized views
—
—
TTL / expiry
—
—
Pub/Sub
—
—
Columnar storage
—
—
In-memory
—
—
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
✓
—
Encryption at rest
—
✓
Role-based access
✓
—
Time travel
—
—
Branching
—
—
Online schema changes
—
—
Streaming ingest
—
—
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
Qdrant Query API (JSON filters)
turbopuffer query API (JSON)
Client languages
Python, JavaScript, Rust, Go, Java, .NET
Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, Ruby
Best for
Vector search, RAG
Vector search, Search, RAG
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Qdrant vs turbopuffer: FAQ

What is the difference between Qdrant and turbopuffer?

Qdrant: Rust vector search engine with rich payload filtering, quantization and a managed cloud. turbopuffer: Serverless vector and full-text search on object storage, priced for billions of documents. Licensing: Qdrant is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0); turbopuffer is proprietary (Proprietary SaaS). Transactions: Qdrant offers none ACID; turbopuffer offers limited. Only Qdrant has geospatial, compression, role-based access.

When should I choose Qdrant over turbopuffer?

Choose Qdrant for RAG retrieval with metadata filtering; recommendation and similarity search; and image and multimodal search. Choose turbopuffer for per-user or per-repo indexes for AI coding and productivity tools; RAG over billions of chunks; and hybrid search for multi-tenant SaaS.

Is Qdrant or turbopuffer more popular?

Qdrant ranks #55 on the WhichDB Score (35.9/100) and turbopuffer ranks #112 (26.5/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Qdrant and turbopuffer open source?

Yes. Qdrant is open source. License: Apache License 2.0. No. turbopuffer is proprietary, closed-source software.