Haystack vs LlamaIndex
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Haystack if you want open-source python framework for production rag, search, and agents (Supervised agent, freemium); choose LlamaIndex if you want open-source data framework for rag pipelines and data-grounded agents (Supervised agent, freemium).
| Haystack | LlamaIndex | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source Python framework for production RAG, search, and agents | Open-source data framework for RAG pipelines and data-grounded agents |
| Type | framework | framework |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | freemium | freemium · Framework free (MIT); LlamaCloud has a free tier |
| Best for | developers, enterprise | developers, enterprise, mid-market |
| Deployment | self-hosted, api | self-hosted, api, saas |
| Modalities | text, code, api, image | text, code, api |
| Models | model-agnostic, open-source | model-agnostic, gpt, claude, open-source |
| Protocols | function-calling, mcp, rest-api | function-calling, mcp, rest-api |
| Integrations | OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face, Ollama, Qdrant, Weaviate | OpenAI, Anthropic, Pinecone, Qdrant, AWS Bedrock, Hugging Face |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 4 documented |
Haystack
- +Mature, explicit, production-oriented architecture with deep RAG and search heritage
- +Broad integrations and an Apache-2.0 license, free to self-host
- +Backed by an established vendor (deepset) with an enterprise tier
- -Python-only
- -The component and pipeline model has a learning curve versus lighter agent SDKs
LlamaIndex
- +Best-in-class data and retrieval primitives (readers, indexes, retrievers, query engines) for grounding agents in your own data
- +Event-driven Workflows orchestrate multi-step agent processes with reflection and error-correction
- +Open source and model-agnostic, with LlamaCloud for managed document parsing and indexing
- -Framework, not a product: autonomy and quality depend entirely on what the developer builds
- -More oriented to data/RAG than to complex multi-agent orchestration compared with some peers
Which should you choose?
Haystack is open-source python framework for production rag, search, and agents, best for developers, enterprise. LlamaIndex is open-source data framework for rag pipelines and data-grounded agents, best for developers, enterprise, mid-market. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.
This comparison is generated from the sourced Haystack and LlamaIndex profiles. Open either profile to review its evidence and last-reviewed date.