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Vespa

Hybrid search and ML ranking engine at scale

open sourceupdated Aug 16, 2026

Vespa is an open-source serving engine with 6K+ GitHub stars for hybrid search combining vector similarity, BM25 text ranking, and structured filtering in a single query. Built by Yahoo for web-scale, it handles billions of documents with millisecond latency. Features real-time indexing, ML model serving, tensor computation, and ACID-compliant writes. Supports custom ranking models, query federation, and geographic search. Used for recommendation systems, personalization, and RAG.

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Vespa combines vector, text, and structured search in one engine. Billions of documents, millisecond latency. Built by Yahoo for web-scale.

Real-time indexing, built-in ML model serving, tensor computation. ACID-compliant partial updates.

Custom ranking models, query federation, geographic search. Self-hosted or Vespa Cloud managed.

Pricing

Free open-source / Vespa Cloud available

Platforms

Self-hosted, Docker, Vespa Cloud

Categories

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Use Cases

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FAQ

What is Vespa?

Vespa is an open-source serving engine with 6K+ GitHub stars for hybrid search combining vector similarity, BM25 text ranking, and structured filtering in a single query. Built by Yahoo for web-scale, it handles billions of documents with millisecond latency. Features real-time indexing, ML model serving, tensor computation, and ACID-compliant writes. Supports custom ranking models, query federation, and geographic search. Used for recommendation systems, personalization, and RAG.

Is Vespa free?

Yes — Vespa is open source and free to use. Free open-source / Vespa Cloud available

Is Vespa open source?

Yes — Vespa is open source.

What are the best Vespa alternatives?

The top editor-verified Vespa alternatives are LanceDB, turbopuffer, Ragie.

How does Vespa score in our review?

Our hands-on review scores Vespa 82/100 overall, based on speed, privacy, and developer-experience testing.