head to head · open source
zvec vs kividb
zvec has 16,144 GitHub stars, 1,013 forks, 56 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. kividb has 543 stars, 15 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zvec leads on adoption by 2,873% (16,144 vs 543 stars). zvec is written in C++ under Apache-2.0; kividb is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. zvec has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, kividb 3%. kividb 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
| zvec | kividb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 543 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-22 | 2026-10-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 15 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick zvec if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kividb if
- You want the kividb 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 kividb fits your workflow better
About zvec
English 中文 🚀 Quickstart 🏠 Home 📚 Docs 📊 Benchmarks 🔎 DeepWiki 🎮 Discord 🐦 X (Twitter) Zvec is an open source, in process vector database — lightweight, lightning fast, and designed to embed directly into applications. Battle tested within Alibaba Group, it delivers production grade, low latency and scalable similarity search with minimal setup. [!Important] 🚀 v0.7.0 (August 24, 2026) zvec grep ( zg ) : Local first workspace search that unifies ripgrep, BM25, and vector search behind one CLI — built for humans and AI agents. ReMe integration : zvec is now a file store backend in ReMe, the memory…
About kividb
KiviDB KiviDB is a fast, multi threaded alternative to Redis® and Valkey, written in Rust. It speaks the Redis protocol (RESP2 and RESP3), so existing Redis clients, redis cli and libraries work unchanged, and it has full text and vector search built in. It runs every core on a sharded in memory key value design, and persists to snapshots and an optional append only file. On the same 32 cores, KiviDB serves 21 million pipelined GETs per second: about 9× Redis 8 and 2.3× Dragonfly , with under half Dragonfly's p99 latency (benchmarks). KiviDB listens on 6380 , not Redis's 6379, so the two can run side by side…
read the full kividb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zvec or kividb more popular?
zvec has 16,144 GitHub stars and kividb has 543. zvec has the larger community by that measure.
Are zvec and kividb free?
Both are open source. zvec is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kividb under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zvec and kividb?
zvec is written in C++ and kividb 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, zvec or kividb?
Choose zvec if you want the larger community (16,144 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kividb if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.