head to head · open source
Langfuse vs zvec
Langfuse has 34,826 GitHub stars, 3,815 forks, 926 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zvec has 15,972 stars, 998 forks, 56 open issues and last shipped today. Langfuse leads on adoption by 118% (34,826 vs 15,972 stars). Langfuse is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; zvec is written in C++ under Apache-2.0. Langfuse has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, zvec 6%. zvec 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
| Langfuse | zvec | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 16K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 998 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Langfuse if
- You weight community size — 35K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick zvec if
- You want the zvec feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and zvec fits your workflow better
About Langfuse
Langfuse is an open source LLM engineering platform for building, monitoring, and improving AI powered applications. It lives in the LLMops ecosystem and provides tooling for the full development lifecycle—from prompt iteration and evaluation to observability and dataset management. Built with TypeScript and powered by ClickHouse, it enables teams to track LLM calls, user sessions, and internal logic like retrieval or agent actions in a unified interface.
read the full Langfuse overview →
About zvec
Zvec is an open source, in process vector database written in C++ and licensed under Apache 2.0, built to embed directly into applications so that vector search, full text search, and hybrid retrieval run inside the developer's own process instead of behind a separate service.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Langfuse or zvec more popular?
Langfuse has 34,826 GitHub stars and zvec has 15,972. Langfuse has the larger community by that measure.
Are Langfuse and zvec free?
Both are open source. Langfuse has no licence declared in this registry, and zvec is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Langfuse and zvec?
Langfuse is written in TypeScript and zvec in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Langfuse or zvec?
Choose Langfuse if you want the larger community (34,826 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose zvec if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.