Vald

Vald is a Kubernetes-oriented distributed ANN engine, not an unaudited "fastest NGT" census. Rechecked 2026-08-18: github.com/vdaas/vald had 1,716 stars, license Apache-2.0, homepage vald.vdaas.org, description A Highly Scalable Distributed Vector Search Engine. vald.vdaas.org still says it uses NGT, automatic indexing / backup, and horizontal scale, and showed docs version v1.7.16. The old vald.dev host failed TLS from this environment; treat vald.vdaas.org as the live site. There is no public dollar seat. Drop leftover copy that never printed stars, license, or the current domain.

Compare Qdrant if you wanted a larger OSS engine plus Cloud Free / usage-based Standard, Milvus if you wanted another OSS vector DB (cloud is Zilliz), and Faiss if you wanted an in-process MIT library instead of a Kubernetes service.

Key Features

• OSS, self-host on Kubernetes: README requires Kubernetes 1.19+ and AVX2 for the NGT agent. Helm chart is on vald.vdaas.org/charts. That is the product, not a hosted $20 row.
• NGT is the ANN backend: First-party pages still name NGT. "Fastest ANN" is their marketing; we did not re-run ann-benchmarks.com.
• No Cloud seat on the homepage: Docs, Slack, and Helm are public. We did not invent a Vald SaaS dollar.
• Website moved: Point new copy at vald.vdaas.org. Recheck vald.dev only if TLS comes back.

Use Cases

• People who will run Helm on Kubernetes and pay their own cluster.
• Teams comparing 1,716 stars against Qdrant 34,018 or Milvus 45,663.
• People who already standardized on NGT and want a distributed wrapper.

Limitation: We did not re-measure billion-vector claims. Treat that as first-party marketing, not a census.

Pricing

GitHub and vald.vdaas.org on 2026-08-18.

If a leftover blog still points only at vald.dev with no license, treat this table as the source.

Getting Started

1. Open vald.vdaas.org or github.com/vdaas/vald.
2. Recheck the Helm get-started page before you assume a Cloud console.
3. Recheck Qdrant if you wanted a printed Cloud Free node.
4. Do not paste "fastest ANN" as a measured result.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it free?

Yes. Apache-2.0. You pay the Kubernetes cluster.

Is vald.dev still official?

The GitHub homepage and the site we opened are vald.vdaas.org. vald.dev failed TLS here.

Same as Qdrant?

No. Qdrant has a much larger star count and a public Cloud matrix. Vald is a smaller NGT-on-Kubernetes engine.

Alternatives

• Qdrant: OSS plus Cloud Free / usage-based Standard.
• Milvus: Another open vector DB; managed Cloud is Zilliz.
• Faiss: MIT library, not a Kubernetes service.
• Vespa: Search + ranking serving engine that also does vectors.

Tips

1. Quote 1,716 stars, Apache-2.0, and vald.vdaas.org.
2. Call NGT "fastest" only as their claim.
3. Recheck Qdrant/Milvus if you wanted a Cloud seat.

Conclusion

Vald is an Apache-2.0 Kubernetes ANN engine with 1,716 stars on vald.vdaas.org, not an unaudited fastest-NGT census. Start at vald.vdaas.org, then decide whether Qdrant already covers the Cloud table you need.