#77th of 8 in Vector databases
HelixDB
Rust graph database with native vector and BM25 search
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- Stars
- 6.2k
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Last commit
- Oct 2026
- Last release
- Oct 2026
Overview
HelixDB is a Rust database that combines a labeled property graph, approximate nearest-neighbor vector search and BM25 full-text search in one transactional engine. A CLI starts a local instance in Docker or Podman on port 6969 (in-memory by default, --disk to persist) or the engine runs embedded, and Rust, TypeScript, Python and Go SDKs send the same JSON queries to POST /v2/query.
Who it is for: developers wanting graph plus vector retrieval in one store
Strengths
- Graph traversal, vector ANN and BM25 in one transactional engine
- Vector search prefiltered by graph traversal
- SDKs for Rust, TypeScript, Python and Go sending the same JSON query
- Embedded mode runs inside your process without a server
Weaknesses
- Local data is in-memory unless started with --disk
- Python and Go SDKs are 0.x while Rust and TypeScript are 3.x
- Cypher support only in source builds
- Install is a curl piped to bash script
What it needs
- no GPU
- Docker
- Needs Docker or Podman for the local instance
- Models: any embedding model; stores precomputed vectors
- port 6969
Also in Vector databases
See all 8| Rank | Project | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | MilvusDistributed vector database with dense, sparse and hybrid search at scale | 81 out of 100 |
| 2 | MeilisearchRust search engine API with full-text, vector and hybrid search | 69 out of 100 |
| 3 | ChromaEmbedding database with a four-function API for Python and JavaScript | 64 out of 100 |
| #4 | QdrantRust vector database with payload filtering, REST and gRPC | 63 out of 100 |
| #5 | pgvectorPostgreSQL extension for vector similarity search with HNSW and IVFFlat | 59 out of 100 |