Dev tools · September 13, 2023
Victor, a browser-optimized vector database written in Rust
Hey HN, My friend Sam and I were bored one weekend, and wanted to make something self-contained but still useful. We ended up with Victor [0], a vector database designed to run in the browser. It’s written in Rust, which gives us access to things like super-fast and compact serialization and deserialization, but it’s compiled to WASM and uses web-sys to interact with the browser’s JS APIs to write the database contents to disk. We worked hard on designing it in a way that makes sense for the browser. It uses the private origin file system [1] and stores the vectors in a compact format (one…
Victor, a browser-optimized vector database written in Rust launched on September 13, 2023 with 27 votes, #1,350 of 4,228 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 3 years on.
In plain words
Victor is a vector database that runs directly in web browsers, built with Rust and compiled to WebAssembly. It stores vector data locally using the browser's private file system with compact serialization to minimize storage overhead. The database includes built-in PCA compression that automatically activates when files exceed 10MB, reducing vector dimensions to conserve space. Designed for developers building browser-based applications that need efficient vector storage and retrieval without server infrastructure.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Web-optimized vector database (written in Rust). Contribute to not-pizza/victor development by creating an account on GitHub.
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN, My friend Sam and I were bored one weekend, and wanted to make something self-contained but still useful. We ended up with Victor [0], a vector database designed to run in the browser. It’s written in Rust, which gives us access to things like super-fast and compact serialization and deserialization, but it’s…
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Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part
