Comparison

Turbopuffer vs txtai

On the evidence we track, Turbopuffer leads this comparison with a composite score of 68/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
★Turbopuffer68
txtai61
Score
vioscaleAI score
Turbopuffer68 / 100medium · 61%
txtai61 / 100medium · 56%
Pricing
Free tier
Turbopuffer✗
txtai✓
Model
Turbopuffercommercial
Price level
Turbopuffermid
txtaifree
Starting price
Turbopuffer$16
txtai–
Transparent
Turbopuffer✓
txtai✓
Integrations
Count
Turbopuffer–
txtai5
Security
Disclosure policy
Turbopuffer✓
txtai–
Gdpr
Turbopuffer✓
txtai–
Hipaa
Turbopuffer✓
txtai–
Scorecard
Turbopuffer–
txtai5.4
Soc2
Turbopuffer✓
txtai–
Reliability
Sla pct
Turbopuffer99.95
txtai–
Status page
Turbopuffer✓
txtai✓
Adoption
Dependent repos
Turbopuffer–
txtai14
Github stars
Turbopuffer–
txtai13,018
Activity
Commits last 30d
Turbopuffer–
txtai100
Release
Cadence days
Turbopuffer–
txtai27
History
Turbopuffer–
License
Spdx
Turbopuffer–
Language
Primary
Turbopuffer–
txtaiPython
Market
Availability
Content
Faq
Turbopuffer6 items
txtai6 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for vector databases. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deployment
Deployment
TurbopufferManaged
txtaiEmbedded
Serverless / consumption pricing
Turbopuffer✓
txtai-
Index
ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat)
TurbopufferSPFresh (centroid-based)
txtaiHNSW, IVF, IVFSparse, milvus-lite, turbovec, zvec
Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean)
Turbopuffer-
txtaicosine
Query
Metadata filtering
TurbopufferPre-filter
txtaiPre-filter
Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion)
Turbopuffer✓
txtai✓
Built-in BM25 / lexical
Turbopuffer✓
txtai✓
Storage
Quantization
Turbopuffer-
txtaiScalar
On-disk vs in-memory
TurbopufferTiered
txtaiDisk-backed
Scale
Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants)
Turbopuffer✓
txtai✓
Horizontal scale
TurbopufferSharded / distributed
txtaiSharded / distributed
Consistency
Consistency
TurbopufferTunable
txtaiTunable
Licensing
Licence class
TurbopufferProprietary
txtaiPermissive OSS
Classification
Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent
TurbopufferDedicated DBMS
txtaiDedicated DBMS

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Turbopuffer

Leader

Vector and full-text search database built on object storage, offering 10x cheaper cost and extreme scalability for AI applications, semantic search, and recommendation systems.

Independently observed

txtai

txtai is an open-source Python framework for building semantic search applications, LLM-powered agents, retrieval augmented generation systems, and language model workflows with support for multiple vector backends and integration with various LLMs.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Turbopuffer

Leader
from $16/moHybrid

From $16/month (Launch plan minimum) with consumption-based billing

  • Launch$16/month minimum with usage-based overage
as of verify ↗

txtai

Open sourceFree tier
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Turbopuffer✓
txtai✓
CLI
Turbopuffer✓
txtai✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Turbopuffer✓
txtai✗
Self-hosted
Turbopuffer✗
txtai✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

Turbopuffer

Leader

Not documented yet.

txtai

12 total
  • llama.cpp
  • LiteLLM
  • Hugging Face
  • OpenAI
  • Claude
  • AWS Bedrock
  • smolagents
  • OpenCode
  • DuckDB
  • Milvus
  • LiteRT
  • Model Context Protocol
Independently observed
Still deciding?

Turbopuffer or txtai: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.