ElasticsearchThe search database for AI
vs
VespaThe AI Search Platform for fast, accurate AI search
Comparison · Vector Databases · weekly run Nov 2
Elasticsearch vs Vespa
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Elasticsearch is the stronger AI pick in Vector Databases: it has a visibility score of 14.3 versus 3.8 for Vespa, and ranks ahead in 33% of the answers that name both.
Choose Elasticsearch if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (14.3 vs 3.8)
- You need SOC 2 Type II or ISO/IEC 27001 or ISO/IEC 27017 or ISO/IEC 27018 or ISO/IEC 27701 or FedRAMP Moderate or FedRAMP High or PCI DSS or HIPAA or CSA STAR coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (1,001–5,000 employees)
- Strongest general enterprise choice for vector search alongside full-text search, logs, and analytics
Choose Vespa if…
- AI answers describe it more positively (67% vs 30% positive)
- Massive-scale big data serving engine and AI search platform
- Billion-scale hybrid search with native tensor calculations
- Suited to sophisticated recommendation, ranking, and personalization with custom ranking logic
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 2
| Metric | Elasticsearch | Vespa |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 14.3% | 3.8% |
| Change vs last week | New | New |
| Rank in Vector Databases | #7 | #17 |
| Share of voice | 5.1% | 1.9% |
| Mentions this run | 24 | 9 |
| Positive in AI answers | 30% | 67% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Elasticsearch 0pp · Vespa 0pp over 0 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Elasticsearch leads on 3 of 3 engines
ChatGPT
AI Mode
Perplexity
ElasticsearchVespa
Head to head in AI answers
6 engine answers name both brands
2Elasticsearch ranked higher
4Vespa ranked higher
| Prompt | Engine | Elasticsearch | Vespa |
|---|---|---|---|
| What are the best Vector Databases tools in 2026? | ChatGPT | #8 | #7 |
| What are the best Vector Databases tools in 2026? | Perplexity | #7 | #8 |
| Compare the leading Vector Databases platforms | Perplexity | #6 | #10 |
| Alternatives to the most popular vector database | ChatGPT | #8 | #7 |
| Official website of the top vector database vendors | ChatGPT | #8 | #5 |
| Official website of the top vector database vendors | Perplexity | #9 | #6 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Elasticsearch | Vespa |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Elastic Cloud Serverless, Elastic Cloud Hosted, or self-managed on premises, in private, hybrid or air-gapped environments. | Open source for self-hosting, Vespa Cloud fully managed on AWS and Google Cloud marketplaces, and Enclave, which runs hosts in the customer's own cloud account. |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 27017, ISO/IEC 27018, ISO/IEC 27701, FedRAMP Moderate, FedRAMP High, PCI DSS, HIPAA, CSA STAR | — |
| Support | Four support tiers depending on Elastic Cloud subscription tier, 99.95% monthly uptime SLA for Platinum and Enterprise tiers | Developer center and documentation, Vespa Slack community |
| Founded | 2012 | 2023 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California | Trondheim, Norway |
| Employees | 1,001–5,000 | 51–200 |
| Funding | IPO (NYSE) | Series A, led by Blossom Capital · $31M raised |
| Best for | Teams building AI search, RAG and vector applications, and organizations that want search, observability and security on one data platform. | Teams building search, retrieval-augmented generation, recommendation and personalization applications that must run at large scale. |
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Elasticsearch
- Strongest general enterprise choice for vector search alongside full-text search, logs, and analytics
- Widely deployed, often cited as the most widely deployed vector-capable search engine
- Hybrid keyword-plus-semantic search via dense vectors and inverted indexes
- Suited to consolidated stacks and broader search, logging, analytics, or observability platforms
- Existing infrastructure can be leveraged
- Smaller community and ecosystem than PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB
Vespa
- Massive-scale big data serving engine and AI search platform
- Billion-scale hybrid search with native tensor calculations
- Suited to sophisticated recommendation, ranking, and personalization with custom ranking logic
- High-throughput serving
- Recognised by analysts among strongest vector database vendors
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 100%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Elasticsearch vs Vespa”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/elasticsearch-vs-vespa, data of Nov 2, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.