head to head · open source
Qdrant vs neo4j
Qdrant has 34,638 GitHub stars, 2,680 forks, 704 open issues and last shipped yesterday. neo4j has 17,241 stars, 2,703 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Qdrant leads on adoption by 101% (34,638 vs 17,241 stars). Qdrant is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; neo4j is written in Java under GPL-3.0. Qdrant has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, neo4j 16%. Qdrant 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
| Qdrant | neo4j | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Qdrant if
- You weight community size — 35K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick neo4j if
- You want the neo4j feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and neo4j fits your workflow better
About Qdrant
Qdrant is a vector similarity search engine and database built in Rust, designed for production use in AI applications. It stores, manages, and retrieves high dimensional vectors alongside associated metadata (payloads), supporting fast nearest neighbor search with filtering. It solves the problem of efficiently performing semantic or neural based matching at scale—such as finding similar images, recommending content, or powering retrieval augmented generation (RAG)—by replacing slow or inflexible brute force or index based approaches with a purpose built engine optimized for vector operations.…
read the full Qdrant overview →
About neo4j
Neo4j is a Java graph database released under GPL 3.0 that stores data as nodes and relationships and queries it with Cypher, aimed at developers, data engineers, and platform teams building connected data applications who would otherwise model those relationships as tables and joins.
read the full neo4j overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Qdrant or neo4j more popular?
Qdrant has 34,638 GitHub stars and neo4j has 17,241. Qdrant has the larger community by that measure.
Are Qdrant and neo4j free?
Both are open source. Qdrant is licensed under Apache-2.0 and neo4j under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Qdrant and neo4j?
Qdrant is written in Rust and neo4j in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Qdrant or neo4j?
Choose Qdrant if you want the larger community (34,638 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose neo4j if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.