OpenAI text-embedding-3-small vs Voyage 3.5 Lite

Detailed comparison between OpenAI text-embedding-3-small and Voyage 3.5 Lite. See which embedding best meets your accuracy and performance needs. If you want to compare these models on your data, try Agentset.

Model Comparison

Voyage 3.5 Lite takes the lead.

Both OpenAI text-embedding-3-small and Voyage 3.5 Lite are powerful embedding models designed to improve retrieval quality in RAG applications. However, their performance characteristics differ in important ways.

Why Voyage 3.5 Lite:

  • Voyage 3.5 Lite delivers better accuracy (nDCG@10: 0.703 vs 0.689)

Overview

Key metrics

ELO Rating

Overall ranking quality

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

1480

Voyage 3.5 Lite

1490

Win Rate

Head-to-head performance

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

43.9%

Voyage 3.5 Lite

44.2%

Accuracy (nDCG@10)

Ranking quality metric

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

0.689

Voyage 3.5 Lite

0.703

Average Latency

Response time

OpenAI text-embedding-3-small

15ms

Voyage 3.5 Lite

19ms

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Visual Performance Analysis

Performance

ELO Rating Comparison

Win/Loss/Tie Breakdown

Accuracy Across Datasets (nDCG@10)

Latency Distribution (ms)

Breakdown

How the models stack up

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallVoyage 3.5 LiteDescription
Overall Performance
ELO Rating
1480
1490
Overall ranking quality based on pairwise comparisons
Win Rate
43.9%
44.2%
Percentage of comparisons won against other models
Pricing & Availability
Price per 1M tokens
$0.020
$0.020
Cost per million tokens processed
Dimensions
1536
512
Vector embedding dimensions (lower is more efficient)
Release Date
2024-01-25
2025-05-20
Model release date
Accuracy Metrics
Avg nDCG@10
0.689
0.703
Normalized discounted cumulative gain at position 10
Performance Metrics
Avg Latency
15ms
19ms
Average response time across all datasets

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Agentset gives you a complete RAG API with top-ranked embedding models and smart retrieval built in. Upload your data, call the API, and get accurate results from day one.

import { Agentset } from "agentset";

const agentset = new Agentset();
const ns = agentset.namespace("ns_1234");

const results = await ns.search(
  "What is multi-head attention?"
);

for (const result of results) {
  console.log(result.text);
}

Dataset Performance

By field

Comprehensive comparison of accuracy metrics (nDCG, Recall) and latency percentiles for each benchmark dataset.

business reports

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallVoyage 3.5 LiteDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.000
0.000
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.000
0.000
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.000
0.000
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.000
0.000
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
16ms
54ms
Average response time
P50
16ms
54ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
16ms
54ms
90th percentile

DBPedia

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallVoyage 3.5 LiteDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.858
0.793
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.807
0.787
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.062
0.061
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.123
0.120
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
9ms
7ms
Average response time
P50
9ms
7ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
9ms
7ms
90th percentile

FiQa

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallVoyage 3.5 LiteDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.801
0.812
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.814
0.796
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.624
0.718
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.682
0.796
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
16ms
12ms
Average response time
P50
16ms
12ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
16ms
12ms
90th percentile

SciFact

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallVoyage 3.5 LiteDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.663
0.704
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.684
0.726
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.774
0.774
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.840
0.850
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
17ms
9ms
Average response time
P50
17ms
9ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
17ms
9ms
90th percentile

MSMARCO

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallVoyage 3.5 LiteDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.959
0.965
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.946
0.944
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.122
0.123
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.212
0.223
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
20ms
15ms
Average response time
P50
20ms
15ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
20ms
15ms
90th percentile

ARCD

MetricOpenAI text-embedding-3-smallVoyage 3.5 LiteDescription
Accuracy Metrics
nDCG@5
0.786
0.874
Ranking quality at top 5 results
nDCG@10
0.793
0.874
Ranking quality at top 10 results
Recall@5
0.900
0.980
% of relevant docs in top 5
Recall@10
0.920
0.980
% of relevant docs in top 10
Latency Metrics
Mean
15ms
18ms
Average response time
P50
15ms
18ms
50th percentile (median)
P90
15ms
18ms
90th percentile

Explore More

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