head to head · open source
PageIndex vs lancedb
PageIndex has 39,973 GitHub stars, 3,442 forks, 103 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. lancedb has 11,841 stars, 1,150 forks, 627 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PageIndex leads on adoption by 238% (39,973 vs 11,841 stars). PageIndex is written in Python under MIT; lancedb is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. PageIndex has attracted 9% 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
| PageIndex | lancedb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick PageIndex if
- You weight community size — 40K 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 PageIndex
PageIndex: Vectorless, Reasoning based RAG Reasoning based RAG ◦ No Vector DB, No Chunking ◦ Context Aware Retrieval ◦ Reads Like a Human 🌐 Website • ☁️ Cloud • 📖 Docs • 📝 Blog • ✉️ Contact Updates [Aug '26] 🔥 PageIndex SDK : pip install U pageindex now ships local mode : index, retrieve, and chat entirely on your machine with your own LLM key, or point the same client at PageIndex Cloud with an API key. [Aug '26] ⚡ PageIndex Flash : fast tree index generation for text based PDFs, now the default indexing method in PageIndex SDK local mode. Scale PageIndex to Millions of Documents: PageIndex File System is a…
read the full PageIndex 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 PageIndex or lancedb more popular?
PageIndex has 39,973 GitHub stars and lancedb has 11,841. PageIndex has the larger community by that measure.
Are PageIndex and lancedb free?
Both are open source. PageIndex is licensed under MIT and lancedb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PageIndex and lancedb?
PageIndex 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, PageIndex or lancedb?
Choose PageIndex if you want the larger community (39,973 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose lancedb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.