# Orama review

> Orama is a TypeScript search engine and RAG pipeline for browser, server, or edge, supporting full-text, vector, and hybrid search.

Devtoolwatch Board, the week of Oct 25–31, 2026. Canonical page: https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/oramasearch-orama/

## TL;DR

Orama is a search engine and RAG pipeline that runs in the browser, on a server, or on an edge network. It is for JavaScript and TypeScript developers who want in-app full-text, vector, or hybrid search. Orama also offers chat-style answer sessions and a plugin system.

## Orama at a glance

- **Category:** [RAG, data and memory](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/categories/rag-data-and-memory/)
- **Maintained by:** Orama (organization, [@oramasearch](https://github.com/oramasearch) on GitHub)
- **Language:** TypeScript, Astro, MDX
- **Repository:** [github.com/oramasearch/orama](https://github.com/oramasearch/orama)
- **Website:** [docs.orama.com/docs/orama-js](https://docs.orama.com/docs/orama-js)
- **npm package:** [@orama/orama](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@orama/orama) 3.1.18
- **Latest release:** [v3.1.18](https://github.com/oramasearch/orama/releases/tag/v3.1.18) on GitHub, Dec 19, 2025
- **First published:** May 10, 2022

## What Orama does

- Orama runs full-text, vector, and hybrid search, selected with a mode option of 'fulltext', 'vector', or 'hybrid'.
- Orama supports search filters, facets, geosearch, fields boosting, typo tolerance, exact match, and BM25 ranking.
- Orama provides stemming and tokenization in 30 languages.
- Orama offers GenAI chat sessions through AnswerSession, which builds ChatGPT- or Perplexity-like experiences since v3.0.0.
- Orama supports pinning rules for merchandising, letting you pin documents in results.
- Orama can generate embeddings at insert and search time with the @orama/plugin-embeddings plugin.
- Orama has official plugins for analytics, data persistence, Vitepress, Docusaurus, Astro, and Nextra.

### How it works

You import Orama as a JavaScript library, create a database with a typed schema, insert documents, and call search. Schemas support ten data types, including geopoint and vector[size]. Vector search needs embeddings, either supplied by you or generated by the embeddings plugin with a TensorflowJS backend. Chat features call OpenAI APIs, ideally through the Secure Proxy plugin.

## How to install Orama

**With npm**

```
npm i @orama/orama
```

### Requirements

- Node.js 20.0.0 or later.
- An OpenAI API key for chat and OpenAI embedding features, routed through the Secure Proxy plugin.
- A TensorflowJS backend, such as @tensorflow/tfjs-node, when using @orama/plugin-embeddings.

### First steps

1. Install the package, then import create, insert, and search from '@orama/orama'.
2. Create a database with a schema; declare vector sizes, such as 'vector[1536]', when you define the schema.
3. Insert documents with insert or insertMultiple.
4. Call search with a term, or set mode to 'vector' or 'hybrid' and pass embeddings.

## Who Orama is for

- JavaScript or TypeScript apps that need search running in the browser, server, or edge.
- Documentation sites built with Vitepress, Docusaurus, Astro, or Nextra.
- E-commerce search needing facets, filters, and result pinning.
- Developers building client-side RAG or chat answer experiences.

### Limitations

- Orama requires you to fix vector dimensions when you initialize the schema.
- Orama's embeddings plugin generates 512-dimension vectors, so the schema property must be vector[512].
- Orama's built-in chat example relies on OpenAI models, which requires an external API.
- Orama returning embeddings with includeVectors can produce very large responses.

## Usage data (the week of Oct 25–31, 2026)

- Board rank: #197 overall, #20 in RAG, data and memory, momentum score 45
- Downloads that week: 2.3M (+36% vs 4-week average)
- New GitHub stars per week (last 12 weeks): Aug 9: 14; Aug 16: 8; Aug 23: 13; Aug 30: 14; Sep 6: 3; Sep 13: 9; Sep 20: 10; Sep 27: 7; Oct 4: 12; Oct 11: 8; Oct 18: 7; Oct 25: 10

## Orama alternatives

| Rank | Tool | Stars | Downloads/wk |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | [XERJ](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/xerj-org-xerj/) | 17.9k | – |
| #2 | [Memvid](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/memvid-memvid/) | 17.3k | – |
| #3 | [LEANN](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/startrail-org-leann/) | 13.7k | – |
| #4 | [Graphify](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/graphify-labs-graphify/) | 140k | 480.7k |
| #5 | [MarkItDown](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/markitdown/) | 193.2k | 4.7M |
| #6 | [Firecrawl](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/firecrawl/) | 197.4k | 2.9M |

## Orama FAQ

### Is Orama free and open source?

Orama's code is on GitHub (oramasearch/orama), but the repository doesn't declare a standard open-source license. Check its license file before using it commercially.

### How do I install Orama?

Run `npm i @orama/orama`. It needs Node.js >= 20.0.0. The install section above has the other options from the project's README.

### Is Orama still maintained?

Yes. The oramasearch/orama repository was last updated on Oct 18, 2026, and the latest release, v3.1.18 on GitHub, came out on Dec 19, 2025.

### How popular is Orama?

Orama has 10.6k GitHub stars as of Nov 1, 2026. It gained 10 new stars in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, against a 12-week average of 10 a week. Its main package had about 2.3M downloads that week, +36% against its own 4-week average. That made it #20 among RAG, data and memory tools on the Devtoolwatch Board.

### What are the best alternatives to Orama?

Other RAG, data and memory tools on the Devtoolwatch Board in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, by momentum: XERJ (#1), Memvid (#2), LEANN (#3), Graphify (#4), MarkItDown (#5). The alternatives table above has their numbers.

### What does Orama do?

Orama is a search engine and RAG pipeline for the browser, server, or edge network. Orama supports full-text, vector, and hybrid search, plus filters, facets, geosearch, and chat answer sessions.

### Does Orama generate embeddings?

Orama can generate embeddings with the @orama/plugin-embeddings plugin. The plugin creates 512-dimension vectors at insert time and at search time in vector or hybrid mode. It needs a TensorflowJS backend.

### Can Orama run in Deno or directly in a browser?

Orama runs in both. You can import Orama in a browser module from the jsDelivr CDN. In Deno, use the same CDN URL or the npm specifier 'npm:@orama/orama'.

### How does Orama handle RAG and chat?

Orama has provided AnswerSession for chat-style answers since v3.0.0. The session calls OpenAI models, and the README recommends the Secure Proxy plugin for calling them safely from the client side.

### Can Orama persist its index?

Orama offers an official Data Persistence plugin. Release v3.1.13 added a seqproto serialization format for disk persistence.

## Sources

1. [oramasearch/orama on GitHub](https://github.com/oramasearch/orama)
2. [Orama README](https://github.com/oramasearch/orama/blob/main/README.md)
3. [@orama/orama on npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@orama/orama)
4. [Orama website](https://docs.orama.com/docs/orama-js)
5. [Release v3.1.18 (Dec 19, 2025)](https://github.com/oramasearch/orama/releases/tag/v3.1.18)
6. [Release v3.1.17 (Dec 14, 2025)](https://github.com/oramasearch/orama/releases/tag/v3.1.17)
7. [Release v3.1.16 (Oct 13, 2025)](https://github.com/oramasearch/orama/releases/tag/v3.1.16)
8. [Devtoolwatch Board, the week of Oct 25–31, 2026](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/)