head to head · open source
vllm vs paradedb
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars, 22,335 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. paradedb has 9,276 stars, 457 forks, 193 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vllm leads on adoption by 892% (92,028 vs 9,276 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; paradedb is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. vllm has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, paradedb 5%. vllm 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
| vllm | paradedb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 92K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 22K | ⑂ 457 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vllm if
- You weight community size — 92K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick paradedb if
- You want the paradedb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and paradedb fits your workflow better
About vllm
vLLM is a high throughput, memory efficient Python library for LLM inference and serving, built for ML engineers and platform teams who need to run open weight models on their own hardware at production scale.
About paradedb
ParadeDB is an AGPL 3.0 PostgreSQL extension, written in Rust and distributed from the paradedb repository, that upgrades Postgres with full text search, BM25 scoring, vector retrieval, and aggregations so application data and the search engine live in one database — intended for teams that would otherwise deploy and sync a separate search system.
read the full paradedb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or paradedb more popular?
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars and paradedb has 9,276. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and paradedb free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and paradedb under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and paradedb?
vllm is written in Python and paradedb 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, vllm or paradedb?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (92,028 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose paradedb if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.