head to head · open source
Typesense vs Quickwit
Typesense has 26,568 GitHub stars, 974 forks, 879 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Quickwit has 11,651 stars, 597 forks, 815 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Typesense leads on adoption by 128% (26,568 vs 11,651 stars). Typesense is written in C++ under GPL-3.0; Quickwit is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Typesense has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, Quickwit 5%. Quickwit 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
| Typesense | Quickwit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 12K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 974 | ⑂ 597 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Typesense if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- 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 Typesense
Typesense is an open source, C++ built search engine released under the GPL 3.0 licence that provides typo tolerant, low latency full text search for developers and teams who want an Algolia alternative they host and control themselves.
read the full Typesense overview →
About Quickwit
Quickwit is an open source search engine written in Rust under the Apache 2.0 license. It is positioned for observability workloads, especially log management and distributed tracing, and it names metrics support as a roadmap item. The project lives in the cloud native search engine ecosystem and is designed to search data stored in object storage.
read the full Quickwit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Typesense or Quickwit more popular?
Typesense has 26,568 GitHub stars and Quickwit has 11,651. Typesense has the larger community by that measure.
Are Typesense and Quickwit free?
Both are open source. Typesense is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Quickwit under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Typesense and Quickwit?
Typesense is written in C++ 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, Typesense or Quickwit?
Choose Typesense if you want the larger community (26,568 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Quickwit if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.