Qdrant - Vector Similarity Search Engine

High-performance vector database written in Rust for production RAG and semantic search.

When to use Qdrant

Use Qdrant when:

• Building production RAG systems requiring low latency
• Need hybrid search (vectors + metadata filtering)
• Require horizontal scaling with sharding/replication
• Want on-premise deployment with full data control
• Need multi-vector storage per record (dense + sparse)
• Building real-time recommendation systems

Key features:

• Rust-powered: Memory-safe, high performance
• Rich filtering: Filter by any payload field during search
• Multiple vectors: Dense, sparse, multi-dense per point
• Quantization: Scalar, product, binary for memory efficiency
• Distributed: Raft consensus, sharding, replication
• REST + gRPC: Both APIs with full feature parity

Use alternatives instead:

• Chroma: Simpler setup, embedded use cases
• FAISS: Maximum raw speed, research/batch processing
• Pinecone: Fully managed, zero ops preferred
• Weaviate: GraphQL preference, built-in vectorizers

Quick start

Installation

# Python client
pip install qdrant-client

# Docker (recommended for development)
docker run -p 6333:6333 -p 6334:6334 qdrant/qdrant

# Docker with persistent storage
docker run -p 6333:6333 -p 6334:6334 \
    -v $(pwd)/qdrant_storage:/qdrant/storage \
    qdrant/qdrant

Basic usage

from qdrant_client import QdrantClient
from qdrant_client.models import Distance, VectorParams, PointStruct

# Connect to Qdrant
client = QdrantClient(host="localhost", port=6333)

# Create collection
client.create_collection(
    collection_name="documents",
    vectors_config=VectorParams(size=384, distance=Distance.COSINE)
)

# Insert vectors with payload
client.upsert(
    collection_name="documents",
    points=[
        PointStruct(
            id=1,
            vector=[0.1, 0.2, ...],  # 384-dim vector
            payload={"title": "Doc 1", "category": "tech"}
        ),
        PointStruct(
            id=2,
            vector=[0.3, 0.4, ...],
            payload={"title": "Doc 2", "category": "science"}
        )
    ]
)

# Search with filtering
results = client.search(
    collection_name="documents",
    query_vector=[0.15, 0.25, ...],
    query_filter={
        "must": [{"key": "category", "match": {"value": "tech"}}]
    },
    limit=10
)

for point in results:
    print(f"ID: {point.id}, Score: {point.score}, Payload: {point.payload}")

Core concepts

Points - Basic data unit

from qdrant_client.models import PointStruct

# Point = ID + Vector(s) + Payload
point = PointStruct(
    id=123,                              # Integer or UUID string
    vector=[0.1, 0.2, 0.3, ...],        # Dense vector
    payload={                            # Arbitrary JSON metadata
        "title": "Document title",
        "category": "tech",
        "timestamp": 1699900000,
        "tags": ["python", "ml"]
    }
)

# Batch upsert (recommended)
client.upsert(
    collection_name="documents",
    points=[point1, point2, point3],
    wait=True  # Wait for indexing
)

Collections - Vector containers

from qdrant_client.models import VectorParams, Distance, HnswConfigDiff

# Create with HNSW configuration
client.create_collection(
    collection_name="documents",
    vectors_config=VectorParams(
        size=384,                        # Vector dimensions
        distance=Distance.COSINE         # COSINE, EUCLID, DOT, MANHATTAN
    ),
    hnsw_config=HnswConfigDiff(
        m=16,                            # Connections per node (default 16)
        ef_construct=100,                # Build-time accuracy (default 100)
        full_scan_threshold=10000        # Switch to brute force below this
    ),
    on_disk_payload=True                 # Store payload on disk
)

# Collection info
info = client.get_collection("documents")
print(f"Points: {info.points_count}, Vectors: {info.vectors_count}")

Distance metrics

Search operations

Basic search

# Simple nearest neighbor search
results = client.search(
    collection_name="documents",
    query_vector=[0.1, 0.2, ...],
    limit=10,
    with_payload=True,
    with_vectors=False  # Don't return vectors (faster)
)

Filtered search

from qdrant_client.models import Filter, FieldCondition, MatchValue, Range

# Complex filtering
results = client.search(
    collection_name="documents",
    query_vector=query_embedding,
    query_filter=Filter(
        must=[
            FieldCondition(key="category", match=MatchValue(value="tech")),
            FieldCondition(key="timestamp", range=Range(gte=1699000000))
        ],
        must_not=[
            FieldCondition(key