Elasticsearch vs Weaviate
Compare deployment options, cost efficiency, and features to choose the right vector database for your application.
Database Comparison
Elasticsearch takes the lead.
Both Elasticsearch and Weaviate are powerful vector databases designed for efficient similarity search and storage. However, their deployment options and features differ in important ways.
Why Elasticsearch:
- Elasticsearch ranks higher overall
- Elasticsearch offers more deployment options
- Elasticsearch has 4 more strengths
Elasticsearch
Elasticsearch is one of Europe's most widely deployed open-source search engines that includes native vector database capabilities. It combines dense vector search with traditional full-text BM25 keyword search for powerful hybrid retrieval, making it ideal for RAG applications that need both semantic and lexical search capabilities.
Weaviate
Weaviate is a cloud and self-hosted vector database offering hybrid dense+sparse search, strong metadata filtering, and a modular storage layer. It is designed for enterprise and production RAG workloads that require flexibility and scalable cloud hosting.
Feature Comparison
Infrastructure & Technical Details
| Feature | Elasticsearch | Weaviate |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud, Serverless | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud |
| Cost | Serverless: usage-based (ECU); Hosted: starts ~$95/month; Self-hosted: free (infra cost only) | Free (self-host), cloud starts ~$25/mo |
| License | AGPL v3 / SSPL / Elastic License 2.0 | BSD |
| Index Types | HNSW, int8_hnsw, int4_hnsw, bbq_hnsw, Flat | HNSW, Hybrid dense+sparse |
| Cloud Providers | AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba Cloud | AWS, GCP |
| Regional Flexibility | high | low |
| Strengths | 12 | 8 |
| Weaknesses | 8 | 6 |