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Qdrant vs Weaviate

Qdrant: Rust vector search engine with rich payload filtering, quantization and a managed cloud. Weaviate: Open-source AI-native vector database with hybrid search, modules for embeddings and multi-tenancy.

key differences

  • These two are very similar on paper. Compare ecosystems, pricing and team familiarity.

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 weaviate for

  • +RAG over documents with hybrid retrieval
  • +Multi-tenant SaaS semantic search
  • +Product and content recommendation
  • +Agent memory stores

best at · Vector search, RAG, Search

overview
Primary model
Vector
Vector
Also supports
Document
Document, Search Engine
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Qdrant Solutions GmbH
Weaviate B.V.
First release
2021
2019
Latest version
1.20.0 (Oct 22, 2026)
1.40.2 (Oct 22, 2026)
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
Open source (permissive)BSD-3-Clause (core); enterprise features under the Weaviate License
Free tier
✓
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
35.9
33.4
Rank
#55
#65
GitHub stars
35.3K
16.9K
Stack Overflow questions
60
160
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
None
None
ACID
None
None
Consistency
Tunable, Eventual
Tunable, Eventual
Schema
Schemaless
Flexible
Architecture
Distributed, Client server
Distributed, Client server
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
—
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
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)
GraphQL, Weaviate query API
Client languages
Python, JavaScript, Rust, Go, Java, .NET
Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, C#
Best for
Vector search, RAG
Vector search, RAG, Search

Qdrant vs Weaviate: FAQ

What is the difference between Qdrant and Weaviate?

Qdrant: Rust vector search engine with rich payload filtering, quantization and a managed cloud. Weaviate: Open-source AI-native vector database with hybrid search, modules for embeddings and multi-tenancy.

When should I choose Qdrant over Weaviate?

Choose Qdrant for RAG retrieval with metadata filtering; recommendation and similarity search; and image and multimodal search. Choose Weaviate for RAG over documents with hybrid retrieval; multi-tenant SaaS semantic search; and product and content recommendation.

Is Qdrant or Weaviate more popular?

Qdrant ranks #55 on the WhichDB Score (35.9/100) and Weaviate ranks #65 (33.4/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Qdrant and Weaviate open source?

Yes. Qdrant is open source. License: Apache License 2.0. Yes. Weaviate is open source. License: BSD-3-Clause (core); enterprise features under the Weaviate License.