Qdrant Has a Free Open-Source Vector Database

Qdrant is a free, open-source vector similarity search engine. It powers AI applications like semantic search, recommendations, and RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation).

What Is Qdrant?

Qdrant stores and searches high-dimensional vectors — the backbone of modern AI applications. If you are building anything with embeddings, you need a vector database.

Key features:

• High-performance vector search
• Filtering with payload (metadata)
• Hybrid search (vector + keyword)
• Distributed mode for scaling
• gRPC and REST APIs
• Python, JavaScript, Rust, Go SDKs
• Quantization (reduce memory usage)
• Snapshots and backups
• Single binary deployment

Quick Start

docker run -p 6333:6333 -p 6334:6334 \
  -v qdrant-data:/qdrant/storage \
  qdrant/qdrant

API: http://localhost:6333 | gRPC: localhost:6334

Python SDK

from qdrant_client import QdrantClient
from qdrant_client.models import VectorParams, Distance, PointStruct

client = QdrantClient("localhost", port=6333)

# Create collection
client.create_collection(
    collection_name="articles",
    vectors_config=VectorParams(size=384, distance=Distance.COSINE)
)

# Add vectors (from your embedding model)
client.upsert(
    collection_name="articles",
    points=[
        PointStruct(id=1, vector=[0.1, 0.2, ...], payload={"title": "AI Guide", "topic": "ml"}),
        PointStruct(id=2, vector=[0.3, 0.1, ...], payload={"title": "Docker Basics", "topic": "devops"})
    ]
)

# Search similar
results = client.query_points(
    collection_name="articles",
    query=[0.15, 0.25, ...],  # query vector
    limit=5,
    query_filter=Filter(must=[FieldCondition(key="topic", match=MatchValue(value="ml"))])
)

Use Cases

• RAG: Store document embeddings, retrieve relevant context for LLMs
• Semantic search: Find documents by meaning, not keywords
• Recommendations: Find similar products/content
• Image search: Find visually similar images
• Anomaly detection: Find outliers in data

Qdrant vs Alternatives

Feature	Pinecone	Weaviate	Qdrant
Self-host	No	Yes	Yes
Filtering	Limited	Yes	Advanced
Performance	Good	Good	Excellent
Quantization	No	Yes	Yes
gRPC	No	Yes	Yes
Free tier	100K vectors	Self-host	Unlimited

With 22K+ GitHub stars. The vector database for AI.

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