Typesense vs Vespa
Typesense
typesense.orgVespa
vespa.aiSide by side
| Figure | Typesense | Vespa |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $22/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 7 |
| Spec score · Search Databases | 8.0 (#14) | 8.7 (#5) |
| Spec score · Search & Vector Database Platforms | 8.1 (#10) | 8.7 (#6) |
| Spec score · Site Search Software | 8.0 (#14) | 8.6 (#3) |
| Spec score · Search Engine Software | 8.0 (#8) | 8.6 (#3) |
| Deployment | Typesense can be run locally or on a server, and Typesense Cloud provides a hosted version. | Vespa can be self-managed, run with the Vespa Kubernetes Operator, or deployed on Vespa Cloud. |
| Founded | 2015 | Gartner Peer Insights lists Vespa’s founding year as 2023. |
| Headquarters | Houston, TX | Vespa says its headquarters and engineering hub are in Trondheim, Norway. |
| Integrations | Listed integrations include Firebase, AWS Amplify, Laravel Scout, LangChain, LlamaIndex, InstantSearch, OpenAI, and Google ML platforms. | Vespa Cloud Enclave can run applications in customer accounts on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. |
| Product | Typesense is an open-source, typo-tolerant search engine for instant, typically sub-50ms, search-as-you-type experiences. | Vespa is an AI search platform for online data-driven applications that combines retrieval, ranking, machine-learning inference, and real-time serving. |
| Security | Typesense Cloud says clusters are isolated and dedicated, API traffic is encrypted over HTTPS, and data is protected with full-disk encryption at rest. | The Vespa Cloud security guide describes data-plane requests protected with mutual TLS or, optionally, tokens, and says Vespa.ai has a SOC 2 attestation. |
| Support | Typesense offers community support through GitHub Issues and public Slack, plus paid prioritized support with SLAs, consulting, and training for Cloud. | The Startup plan includes community support only with no SLA; Cloud plans list unlimited support cases, with response times varying by plan. |
Plans
Typesense
- Self-hostedFree
- Typesense Cloud$22 a month
- Free supportFree
- Typesense Cloud cluster$22 a month
- Developer support$160 a month
- Business support$400 a month
- Enterprise support$700 a month
- Enterprise Signature support$1,900 a month
Vespa
- StartupPrice not published
- BasicPrice not published
- CommercialPrice not published
- EnterprisePrice not published
- StartupFree
- Enterprise *$0.18 a month
- Self ManagedPriced on request
In their own words
Typesense
Typesense is an open-source search engine for adding search to a website or app using data you supply; it does not crawl the web. It is designed for typo-tolerant, search-as-you-type results, typically in under 50 milliseconds. Search tools include tunable ranking, sorting, faceting, filtering, grouping, federated search and geo search. Listed AI capabilities include vector and hybrid search, built-in RAG, natural-language, image and voice search.
You can run it locally or on a server, or use hosted Typesense Cloud. Its REST API has listed integrations including Firebase, AWS Amplify, Laravel Scout, LangChain, LlamaIndex, InstantSearch, OpenAI and Google ML platforms. Typesense offers a free plan; Cloud clusters start at $22 a month. Cloud billing includes cluster runtime and bandwidth, and the hourly cluster fee continues while a cluster runs without traffic. The one-time free Cloud tier applies to select configurations and does not renew monthly.
Vespa
Vespa is an AI search platform for online applications that use data, retrieval, ranking, machine-learning inference, and real-time serving. It supports vector and tensor search, positional text search, and queries over structured data. Ranking signals can be combined with tensor functions or machine-learned models, including ONNX and XGBoost formats; model inference can use ONNX Runtime. Vespa distributes functions across node clusters and allows cluster size changes without affecting queries or writes. Teams can self-manage deployments, use the Vespa Kubernetes Operator, or run on Vespa Cloud. Local deployment guidance lists Linux, macOS, and Windows 10 Pro on x86_64 or arm64 with Docker Desktop or Podman Desktop. Vespa Cloud includes encryption at rest and in transit, certificates for nodes and endpoints, and automatic operating system patching. Its trial provides $300 in credits without requiring a credit card, then stops the application when credits are used. Cloud plans have quotas, and Startup is limited to development zones. Pricing is listed from $0.05 a month, with metered resource rates.