Vald
Vald is a Kubernetes-oriented distributed ANN engine, not an unverified "fastest NGT" census. 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.
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.
- Website moved: Point new copy at vald.vdaas.org. Confirm 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.
| Piece | Price | Notes from first-party pages |
|---|---|---|
| Vald OSS | $0 | Apache-2.0. 1,716 stars. Self-host on Kubernetes. |
| Your cluster | Your infra | AVX2 agents, Helm. Not a Vald SKU. |
| Managed vector Clouds | Confirm that product | Qdrant Cloud / Zilliz / Pinecone are other products. |
If a leftover blog still points only at vald.dev with no license, treat this table as the source.
Getting Started
- Open vald.vdaas.org or github.com/vdaas/vald.
- Confirm the Helm get-started page before you assume a Cloud console.
- Confirm Qdrant if you wanted a printed Cloud Free node.
- 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 on the public page 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
- Quote 1,716 stars, Apache-2.0, and vald.vdaas.org.
- Call NGT "fastest" only as their claim.
- Confirm 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 unverified fastest-NGT census. Start at vald.vdaas.org, then decide whether Qdrant already covers the Cloud table you need.
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