LLM Orchestration
Haystack vs LlamaIndex
Build industrial-strength applications with Transformer models and LLMs.
Leading framework for building LLM-powered agents over your data.
Side by side
- Pricing model
- HaystackFlat rate
- LlamaIndexFlat rate
- Starting price
- Haystack$0
- LlamaIndex$0
- Free tier
- HaystackYes — Open source — free to use
- LlamaIndexYes — Open source — free to use
- Maturity
- HaystackEstablished
- LlamaIndexEstablished
- Availability
- HaystackGenerally available
- LlamaIndexGenerally available
- Last checked
- HaystackOct 15, 2026
- LlamaIndexOct 15, 2026
| Fact | Haystack | LlamaIndex |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat rate | Flat rate |
| Starting price | $0 | $0 |
| Free tier | Yes — Open source — free to use | Yes — Open source — free to use |
| Maturity | Established | Established |
| Availability | Generally available | Generally available |
| Last checked | Oct 15, 2026 | Oct 15, 2026 |
When each one fits
Choose Haystack when…
Teams building RAG apps who need a modular architecture for flexibility
Developers integrating AI into existing applications with Python
Researchers developing custom NLP solutions using Transformer models and LLMs
Look past Haystack if…
Projects requiring real-time streaming capabilities (batch-only architecture)
Budget-constrained projects that cannot afford the computational resources required for running large language models
Haystack strengths
Support for Transformer models and LLMs
Question answering system integration
Document search engine capabilities
Modular architecture for flexibility
Extensive documentation and community support
Choose LlamaIndex when…
Teams building RAG applications who need a flexible framework to integrate large language models with their datasets.
Data science teams looking for an easy way to leverage LLMs in their projects without extensive setup.
Look past LlamaIndex if…
Projects requiring real-time data processing and streaming capabilities, as the framework is optimized for batch operations.
Teams that prefer a fully managed service over self-hosting solutions.
LlamaIndex strengths
Simplifies integration of large language models with data.
Supports building intelligent agents over structured and unstructured data.
Flexible architecture for customizing agent behavior.
Trade-offs
Known weaknesses from each tool’s record. Sourced ones link to where they came from.
Haystack
Limited documentation for advanced use cases
No source on file
Performance issues with large datasets
No source on file
LlamaIndex
The project's primary development focus has shifted away from the open-source orchestration framework toward commercial document parsing products.
No source on file