head to head · open source
llama_index vs lancedb
llama_index has 52,779 GitHub stars, 8,500 forks, 770 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. lancedb has 11,832 stars, 1,150 forks, 627 open issues and last shipped yesterday. llama_index leads on adoption by 346% (52,779 vs 11,832 stars). llama_index is written in Python under MIT; lancedb is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. llama_index has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, lancedb 10%. lancedb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (vector-database), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| llama_index | lancedb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 53K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-26 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.5K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick llama_index if
- You weight community size — 53K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick lancedb if
- You want the lancedb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and lancedb fits your workflow better
About llama_index
🗂️ LlamaIndex (OSS Framework) 🦙 [!NOTE] The current focus of LlamaIndex is to build the best AI powered engine for document parsing and extraction. LlamaParse is our enterprise platform for agentic OCR, parsing, extraction, indexing and more. LiteParse represents our efforts to build the best free, fast, cheap text parser in the market. ParseBench and ExtractBench represent our commitment towards open benchmarking for parsing and extraction. The company itself has undergone an evolution since when this OSS framework first launched 3 years ago in 2023. Since the early days, the framework has consisted of a…
read the full llama_index overview →
About lancedb
The Multimodal AI Lakehouse How to Install ✦ Detailed Documentation ✦ Tutorials and Recipes ✦ Contributors The ultimate multimodal data platform for AI/ML applications. LanceDB is designed for fast, scalable, and production ready vector search. It is built on top of the Lance columnar format. You can store, index, and search over petabytes of multimodal data and vectors with ease. LanceDB is a central location where developers can build, train and analyze their AI workloads. Demo: Multimodal Search by Keyword, Vector or with SQL Star LanceDB to get updates! ⭐ Click here ⭐ to see how fast we're growing! Key…
read the full lancedb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is llama_index or lancedb more popular?
llama_index has 52,779 GitHub stars and lancedb has 11,832. llama_index has the larger community by that measure.
Are llama_index and lancedb free?
Both are open source. llama_index is licensed under MIT and lancedb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between llama_index and lancedb?
llama_index is written in Python and lancedb in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, llama_index or lancedb?
Choose llama_index if you want the larger community (52,779 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose lancedb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.