head to head · open source
OpenSearch vs Quickwit
OpenSearch has 13,951 GitHub stars, 3,117 forks, 3,167 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Quickwit has 11,760 stars, 623 forks, 815 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenSearch leads on adoption by 19% (13,951 vs 11,760 stars). OpenSearch is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Quickwit is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. OpenSearch has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, Quickwit 5%. OpenSearch was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (search-engine), 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
| OpenSearch | Quickwit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 623 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenSearch if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Quickwit if
- You want the Quickwit 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 Quickwit fits your workflow better
About OpenSearch
Welcome! Project Resources Code of Conduct Security License Copyright Trademark Welcome! OpenSearch is an open source, enterprise grade search and observability suite that brings order to unstructured data at scale. Project Resources Project Website Downloads Documentation Need help? Try Forums or Slack Contributing to OpenSearch Maintainer Responsibilities Release Management Admin Responsibilities Testing Security Code of Conduct The project's Code of Conduct outlines our expectations for all participants in our community, based on the OpenSearch Code of Conduct. Please contact conduct@opensearch.foundation…
read the full OpenSearch overview →
About Quickwit
Open source search engine for observability (logs, traces, and soon metrics!). Quickstart Docs Tutorials Chat Download We just released Quickwit 0.8! Read the blog post to learn about the latest powerful features! Quickwit is the fastest search engine on cloud storage. It's the perfect fit for observability use cases Log management Distributed tracing Metrics support is on the roadmap 🚀 Quickstart Search and analytics on Stack Overflow dataset Trace analytics with Grafana Distributed tracing with Jaeger 💡 Features Full text search and aggregation queries Elasticsearch compatible API, use Quickwit with any…
read the full Quickwit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenSearch or Quickwit more popular?
OpenSearch has 13,951 GitHub stars and Quickwit has 11,760. OpenSearch has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenSearch and Quickwit free?
Both are open source. OpenSearch is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Quickwit under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenSearch and Quickwit?
OpenSearch is written in Java and Quickwit 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, OpenSearch or Quickwit?
Choose OpenSearch if you want the larger community (13,951 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Quickwit if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.