Crates / vector / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 27, 2026
Alternatives to vector
Short answerThe closest alternatives to vector on crates.io data are lance (22.3K real downloads a day), fjall (7.6K real downloads a day), surrealdb (6.2K real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is crypto-bigint, and 8 shipped a release in the last year. vector itself gets 2 a day with 0 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs vector | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lance Pulled in | 22,286 | 11143.25x | 36 | 20d | category Data structures, category Database implementations, keyword "machine-learning" | compare |
| fjall Pulled in | 7,581 | 3790.50x | 99 | 2d | category Data structures, category Database implementations, keyword "database" | compare |
| surrealdb Established | 6,154 | 3077.00x | 186 | 8d | category Data structures, category Database implementations, keyword "database" | compare |
| ort Established | 98,059 | 49029.50x | 676 | 8d | category Mathematics, keyword "machine-learning" | compare |
| lancedb Established | 11,666 | 5833.00x | 100 | 20d | category Database implementations, keyword "database" | compare |
| crypto-bigint Established | 937,488 | 468743.75x | 167 | 1d | category Data structures, category Mathematics | compare |
| rust_decimal Widely used | 463,122 | 231561.00x | 2,295 | 52d | category Data structures, category Mathematics | compare |
| tantivy Established | 53,551 | 26775.50x | 337 | 10d | category Data structures, category Database implementations | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with vector; read its description before you swap.
- More dependents means more answered questions and a smaller chance it disappears.
- Check the last release against how fast you need fixes. For vector: is it still maintained?
Rules
Alternatives = tracked crates (top 1000 by downloads) that share a specific crates.io category (2 points each) or keyword (3 points each) with vector, most similar first; its own parts (same name prefix) and crates it depends on or that depend on it are left out, because those are companions, not substitutes. Real downloads = quiet-day median, crates.io data Oct 27, 2026. Built when we find 3 or more.
Up next
What these download numbers really meanWhy are crates.io download counts inflated?Because a crates.io "download" is one fetch of a .crate file from the crates.io CDN , not a person. Every CI run on a clean machine fetches again, every new version gets...Read it next →Also worth your time
- crates.io download count: 80% of ours arrived with a new versionThe study behind this method (in This Week in Rust)
- Rust Data Weekly, Oct 17 to Oct 23This week in Rust crate data: growth and suspicious spikes
- How much of crates.io's top 1000 is release-day traffic?Crate Census: how much of the top 1,000 is release-day traffic
Art: Nicholas Roerich, Nag Lake (1925). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
