Vespa alternatives
6 rag tools in the same lane as Vespa, ranked by editorial score.
EV
Elasticsearch Vector Search
RAG · BYO embeddings (OpenAI, Cohere, Hugging Face, Mistral, Bedrock, Vertex, Azure) plus Elastic's built-in ELSER sparse model and E5 dense model
8.7
Hybrid vector + keyword search in the enterprise-grade Elasticsearch engine
Freemium· Resource based pricing: Pay as you go (monthly) or prepaid · Usage based pricing: Pay as you go (monthly) or prepaid · License based pricing: ?RAG chatbot over enterprise docsHybrid semantic + keyword product search
DV
Databricks Vector Search
RAG · Multi-model (BYO embeddings or Databricks-hosted)
8.1
Managed hybrid vector search that lives inside the Databricks lakehouse and auto-syncs with your source tables.
Enterprise· Standard: $605 · Storage Optimized: $922rag-retrievalhybrid-search
ME
Meilisearch
RAG · Retrieval engine (Rust); pluggable embedders including OpenAI, Cohere, Hugging Face, Ollama and custom REST models
Open-source, lightning-fast search engine with built-in hybrid and vector search for RAG
Freemium· Cloud: $20/month · Usage-based: $30/month · Resource-based: $23/month · Instance: $18/monthE-commerce product searchDocumentation and knowledge base search
WE
Weaviate
RAG · Hosted vector DB (not an LLM)
8.4
Open-source vector DB with hybrid search and modules.
Freemium· Free: $0 · Flex: $45 · Premium: $400self-hosted RAGhybrid search
MA
MongoDB Atlas Vector Search
RAG · Bring-your-own embeddings (OpenAI, Cohere, open models); native Voyage AI embeddings and rerankers
8.6
Vector search built into the operational database you're already using.
Freemium· Free: $0 · Flex: Up to $30 · Dedicated: Starts at $56.94RAG over enterprise documentsProduct and content recommendation engines
LA
LanceDB
RAG
8.2
Open-source multimodal lakehouse and vector database built for AI training and retrieval at petabyte scale.
Freemium· Open-source free; LanceDB Cloud and Enterprise via contact salesvector-searchrag