alibaba/zvec

A lightweight, lightning-fast, in-process vector database

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Zvec is an open-source, in-process vector database — lightweight, lightning-fast, and designed to embed directly into applications. Battle-tested within Alibaba Group, it delivers production-grade, low-latency and scalable similarity search with minimal setup.

Important

🚀 v0.5.0 (June 12, 2026)

• Full-Text Search (FTS): Native full-text search — attach an FTS index to any string field and query it with natural-language or structured expressions, no external search engine required.

• Hybrid Retrieval: Combine full-text and vector search in a single MultiQuery across dense vectors, sparse vectors, scalar filters, and text.

• DiskANN Index: New on-disk index that keeps the bulk of the index on disk, drastically cutting memory usage for large-scale datasets.

• Ecosystem & Platforms: New official Go / Rust SDKs, the Zvec Studio visual tool, and RISC-V support.

👉 Read the Release Notes | View Roadmap 📍

💫 Features

• Blazing Fast: Searches billions of vectors in milliseconds.

• Simple, Just Works: Install and start searching in seconds. Pure local, no servers, no config, no fuss.

• Dense + Sparse Vectors: Support dense and sparse embeddings, multi-vector queries, and a rich selection of vector index types that scale from memory to disk.

• Full-Text Search (FTS): Native keyword-based full-text search — query string fields with natural-language or structured expressions.

• Hybrid Search: Fuse vector similarity, full-text search, and structured filters in a single query for precise results.

• Durable Storage: Write-ahead logging (WAL) guarantees persistence — data is never lost, even on process crash or power failure.

• Concurrent Access: Multiple processes can read the same collection simultaneously; writes are single-process exclusive.

• Runs Anywhere: As an in-process library, Zvec runs wherever your code runs — notebooks, servers, CLI tools, or even edge devices.

📦 Installation

Zvec offers official SDKs across multiple languages:

• Python: pip install zvec (requires Python 3.10–3.14)

• Node.js: npm install @zvec/zvec

• Go: High-performance Go bindings.

• Rust: High-performance Rust bindings.

• Dart/Flutter: flutter pub add zvec

Prefer a visual tool? Try Zvec Studio to browse data and debug queries — no code required.

✅ Supported Platforms

• Linux (x86_64, ARM64)

• macOS (ARM64)

• Windows (x86_64)

🛠️ Building from Source

If you prefer to build Zvec from source, please check the Building from Source guide.

⚡ One-Minute Example

📈 Performance at Scale

Zvec delivers exceptional speed and efficiency, making it ideal for demanding production workloads.

For detailed benchmark methodology, configurations, and complete results, please see our Benchmarks documentation.

🤝 Join Our Community

❤️ Contributing

We welcome and appreciate contributions from the community! Whether you're fixing a bug, adding a feature, or improving documentation, your help makes Zvec better for everyone.

Check out our Contributing Guide to get started!