Compare / XERJ vs Qdrant
XERJ vs Qdrant
Pick XERJ if you want one local binary that autoindexes a mixed folder, speaks the Elasticsearch REST API, and stores agent memory. Pick Qdrant if you already produce embeddings and want a dedicated HNSW vector database (the published Pinecone stack).
Facts checked 19 Oct 2026. License, language, and GitHub activity come from the catalog or the project's own repo. "Not in the catalog row" means the public catalog dump does not store that number.
XERJ in the catalog Qdrant in the catalogStart on Railway
How they compare
| XERJ | Qdrant | |
|---|---|---|
| License | Apache-2.0 (catalog) source | Apache-2.0 (catalog) source |
| Language | Rust (catalog) | Rust (catalog) |
| GitHub activity | 10,434 stars in the catalog source | 35,117 stars in the catalog source |
| Self-host | One static binary, no JVM. Elasticsearch REST API, agent memory, built-in MCP. | Published as /stacks/qdrant-vectors. Official image; persist storage. Cloud optional. |
| Best for | A mixed folder and a coding agent that should stop grepping. | A dedicated vector index for embeddings you already have. |
Self-hosting and resource needs
XERJ is one static binary (no JVM) for Linux, macOS, and Windows on x86-64 and arm64. Persist --data-dir. Auth is on by default; --insecure is localhost-only. Qdrant is the published /stacks/qdrant-vectors combo (or pgvector on Postgres). Neither XERJ path has a one-click c17 Railway template; the CTA starts a Railway project. Hosted vector SKUs stay on /compare/vector-databases.
FAQ
- Is XERJ a vector database?
- It does vector kNN and hybrid search, but the product is local AI search over autoindexed files plus an Elasticsearch-compatible API. Qdrant is the dedicated vector database.
- Can I replace Elasticsearch with XERJ?
- It speaks the Elasticsearch REST API (1,366 of 1,369 conformance cases). Kibana and ES clients often work. It is not a fork of Elasticsearch internals, and the four published losses versus ES 8.13.4 are read p99 under heavy concurrent writes.
- Where does the chat UI go?
- Neither page is ChatGPT. Open WebUI + LiteLLM is /stacks/open-webui-litellm. This pair is the index.
- How do I install XERJ?
- curl -fsSL https://xerj.org/get | sh, then xerj --insecure --data-dir ./data & on localhost only. Auth is on without --insecure.
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