# LightRAG vs Pathway

| Attribute | LightRAG | Pathway |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 64.2 (16% (low)) | 59.4 (36% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 0 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 39,203 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | 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. | Pathway Live Data Framework is a scalable, open-source data processing platform that enables continuous, real-time data pipeline construction for AI applications. It provides unified stream and batch processing with built-in support for retrieval-augmented generation, agentic systems, and multimodal data handling. |
| features.capabilities | `{"open_source":true,"multimodal_rag":true,"citation_attribution":true,"llm_provider_agnostic":true,"reranking_integration":true,"managed_ingestion_pipeline":true,"embedding_provider_agnostic":true}` | `{"open_source":true,"multimodal_rag":true,"hybrid_retrieval":true,"llm_provider_agnostic":true,"managed_ingestion_pipeline":true,"embedding_provider_agnostic":true,"multi_hop_agentic_retrieval":true}` |
| integrations.count | - | 300 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Apache Spark"},{"name":"Amazon S3"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"Redpanda"},{"name":"Logstash"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"Google Pub/Sub"},{"name":"Microsoft Sharepoint"},{"name":"Delta Lake"},{"name":"Apache Iceberg"},{"name":"Google BigQuery"},{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"QuestDB"},{"name":"MQTT"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Ollama"},{"name":"Mistral"},{"name":"LiteLLM"},{"name":"Sentence Transformers"},{"name":"Docling"}]` |
| language.primary | Python | - |
| license.spdx | MIT | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US","EU"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | - | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Community","features":["300+ API connectors to data sources","Kafka, S3, PostgreSQL, cloud database connectors","Sub-millisecond REST API endpoints","Python and SQL programming interfaces","Streaming and batch processing","Advanced joins, windows, temporal operations","Rust-based streaming engine","Jupyter notebook support","Vector indexing (HNSW, BM25, hybrid)","LLM extension pack","Unstructured data parsing","Community support"],"description":"Open-source framework under BSL 1.1 license with self-hosted deployment","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"ram":"8 GB","cores":"4"}},{"free":false,"name":"Scale","features":["All Community features","20+ pre-built application templates","Basic RAG pipelines, document processing, log monitoring","Kafka ETL and social media analytics templates","Business support with 1-business day response","Free pipeline design consultation","Developer assistance program"],"description":"Scalable tier for production deployments with cloud hosting options","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{"ram":"24 TB","cores":"128","nodes":"40"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","features":["All Scale features","Advanced connectors (Sharepoint, Delta Lake, Iceberg, BigQuery, Elasticsearch, QuestDB)","MQTT/IoT and custom messaging connectors","High-availability failover","Kubernetes deployment","OpenTelemetry and Grafana monitoring","Real-time geospatial analytics","Visual live dashboards","Historical data snapshots","Industry-specific solutions","Professional services and custom pipelines","Multi-zone SLA","24/7 phone support"],"description":"Fully managed tier with advanced connectors and dedicated support","contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free Community tier; Scale and Enterprise licenses available (specific pricing not published)","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://pathway.com/framework/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T10:57:45.277Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | - | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | - | low |
| pricing.transparent | - | no |
| release.cadence_days | 7 | - |
| release.history | `[{"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.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"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 | LightRAG | Pathway |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **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 2026-09-01T16:45:24.218Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*