head to head · open source
faiss vs txtai
faiss has 41,256 GitHub stars, 4,586 forks, 327 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. txtai has 13,062 stars, 962 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. faiss leads on adoption by 216% (41,256 vs 13,062 stars). faiss is written in C++ under MIT; txtai is written in Python under Apache-2.0. faiss has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, txtai 7%. faiss was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| faiss | txtai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.6K | ⑂ 962 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick faiss if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick txtai if
- You want the txtai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and txtai fits your workflow better
About faiss
Faiss Faiss is a library for efficient similarity search and clustering of dense vectors. It contains algorithms that search in sets of vectors of any size, up to ones that possibly do not fit in RAM. It also contains supporting code for evaluation and parameter tuning. Faiss is written in C++ with complete wrappers for Python/numpy. Some of the most useful algorithms are implemented on the GPU. It is developed primarily at Meta's Fundamental AI Research group. News See CHANGELOG.md for detailed information about latest features. Introduction Faiss contains several methods for similarity search. It assumes that…
read the full faiss overview →
About txtai
All in one AI framework txtai is an all in one AI framework for semantic search, LLM orchestration and language model workflows. The key component of txtai is an embeddings database, which is a union of vector indexes (sparse and dense), graph networks and relational databases. This foundation enables vector search and/or serves as a powerful knowledge source for large language model (LLM) applications. Build autonomous agents, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) processes, multi model workflows and more. Summary of txtai features: 🔎 Vector search with SQL, object storage, topic modeling, graph analysis and…
read the full txtai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is faiss or txtai more popular?
faiss has 41,256 GitHub stars and txtai has 13,062. faiss has the larger community by that measure.
Are faiss and txtai free?
Both are open source. faiss is licensed under MIT and txtai under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between faiss and txtai?
faiss is written in C++ and txtai in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, faiss or txtai?
Choose faiss if you want the larger community (41,256 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose txtai if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.