# Elasticsearch vs Vespa (slim)

> Vespa scores 70 (BB) on agent readiness against Elasticsearch's 67.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Elasticsearch leads on schema & documentation. Both do db vector. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elasticsearch-vs-vespa.md (~2,350 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elasticsearch-vs-vespa.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elasticsearch-vs-vespa
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Vespa scores 70 (BB) on agent readiness against Elasticsearch's 67.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Elasticsearch leads on schema & documentation. Both do db vector.

- Elasticsearch: B 67.7, rank #224 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/elasticsearch.min.md
- Vespa: BB 70, rank #157 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vespa.min.md
- Elasticsearch, good for Retrieval that needs keyword relevance, filters and vectors in one query, and teams already running Elastic for logs or security. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 88 against 58.
- Vespa, good for Teams that need hybrid retrieval with custom ranking at scale and can maintain a schema and application package. Ahead on Reliability, 80 against 62; Payments & pricing, 40 against 35; Maintenance & community, 91 against 83; Transparency & trust, 85 against 71. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better.

| Category | Elasticsearch | Vespa |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 62 | 80 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 88 | 58 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 77 | 80 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 72 | 75 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 35 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 83 | 91 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 71 | 85 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Elasticsearch | Vespa |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Elastic | Vespa.ai AS |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0, SSPL-1.0 or Elastic Licence 2.0 at the user's choice for most source. The `x-pack` folder is under Elastic Licence 2.0 only. Elastic Cloud is a proprietary service under Elastic's terms | Apache-2.0 for the engine, the Vespa CLI and pyvespa. Vespa Cloud is a paid hosted service |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-07 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |
| Popularity | 3.1M npm/wk, 7.8M PyPI/wk | 7.1k stars, 180k PyPI/wk |