# FastRAG vs LightRAG

| Attribute | FastRAG | LightRAG |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 47.4 (35% (low)) | 64.2 (16% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 0 | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 0 | 0 |
| adoption.github_stars | 1,785 | 39,203 |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A toolkit for researchers and developers to construct and optimize RAG applications. It provides streamlined components for retrieval and generation, with support for multiple LLM backends and hardware accelerators, and maintains compatibility with the Haystack framework. | A lightweight RAG system that processes documents through flexible parsing engines and supports local deployment of embedding, reranking, and storage backends. Includes built-in citation attribution and can work with various open-source LLMs and embedding models. |
| features.capabilities | `{"open_source":true,"multimodal_rag":true,"llm_provider_agnostic":true,"embedding_provider_agnostic":true}` | `{"open_source":true,"multimodal_rag":true,"citation_attribution":true,"llm_provider_agnostic":true,"reranking_integration":true,"managed_ingestion_pipeline":true,"embedding_provider_agnostic":true}` |
| integrations.count | 6 | - |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Haystack"},{"name":"HuggingFace"},{"name":"Elastic"},{"name":"Qdrant"},{"name":"OpenVINO"},{"name":"LlamaCpp"}]` | - |
| language.primary | Python | Python |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://github.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T10:58:48.479Z"}` | - |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | - |
| pricing.model | commercial | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | - |
| pricing.transparent | yes | - |
| release.cadence_days | 22 | 7 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v3.1.2","date":"2024-11-25T10:09:51Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.1.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v3.1.1","date":"2024-11-24T14:22:46Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.1.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v3.1.0","date":"2024-11-07T14:21:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v3.0.2","date":"2024-07-09T09:49:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v3.0.1","date":"2024-07-02T13:38:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v3.0","date":"2024-05-22T15:13:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v2.0","date":"2023-12-24T16:24:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v1.3.0","date":"2023-06-20T12:06:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v1.2.1","date":"2023-06-13T10:57:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/IntelLabs/fastRAG/releases/tag/v1.2.0","date":"2023-05-21T11:05:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.0"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.7rc2","date":"2026-08-19T07:01:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.7rc2"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.7rc1","date":"2026-08-17T06:47:01Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.5.7rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.6","date":"2026-08-06T08:29:47Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.5","date":"2026-07-31T12:07:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.5rc1","date":"2026-07-13T19:33:37Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.5.5rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.4","date":"2026-06-24T10:24:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.3","date":"2026-06-14T06:21:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.2","date":"2026-06-11T06:14:51Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.1","date":"2026-06-09T08:32:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.0","date":"2026-06-03T01:54:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.0rc3","date":"2026-05-26T09:27:02Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.5.0rc3"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.16","date":"2026-05-07T19:34:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.16"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.15","date":"2026-04-19T08:40:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.15"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.14","date":"2026-04-12T20:43:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.14"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.13","date":"2026-04-02T17:00:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.12","date":"2026-03-27T05:52:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.11","date":"2026-03-20T08:41:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.11rc2","date":"2026-03-13T06:19:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.11rc2"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.10","date":"2026-02-27T07:39:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.10"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.9.11","date":"2026-01-15T18:27:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.9.11"}]` |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2FIntelLabs%2FfastRAG&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | `{"count":5,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=lightrag-hku&per_page=100","last_12m":4,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` |

## Capabilities (RAG Tools)

| Capability | FastRAG | LightRAG |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Hybrid retrieval | - | - |
| Reranking integration | - | ✓ |
| Multi hop agentic retrieval | - | - |
| Embedding provider agnostic | ✓ | ✓ |
| LLM provider agnostic | ✓ | ✓ |
| Built in rag eval metrics | - | - |
| Citation attribution | - | ✓ |
| Multimodal rag | ✓ | ✓ |
| Managed ingestion pipeline | - | ✓ |
| Open source | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:20:07.646Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*