LightRAG
[EMNLP2025] LightRAG: Simple and Fast Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Our verdict
A usable project with some maintenance caveats. This assessment is derived from GitHub's own repository metrics on 2026-08-30, not from hands-on testing.
[EMNLP2025] LightRAG: Simple and Fast Retrieval-Augmented Generation. The project is written primarily in Python, released under MIT, and has 39,263 stars and 5,521 forks on GitHub. 328 contributors have committed to it, and the most recent push was 2026-08-30. The latest tagged release is v1.5.7rc2 (2026-08-19). Figures come from the GitHub API on 2026-08-30 and are refreshed daily; the score below weighs adoption, maintenance, release discipline, contributor breadth, licence clarity and issue hygiene.
Repository
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- Python
- Last push
- 2026-08-30
Releases
-
v1.5.7rc2v1.5.7rc2 -
v1.5.7rc1v1.5.7rc1 -
v1.5.6v1.5.6 -
v1.5.5v1.5.5 -
v1.5.5rc1v1.5.5rc1 -
v1.5.4v1.5.4
Pros and cons
Pros
Pricing
- Free tierYes
- LicenceMIT
- Self-hostYes, source is public
- Public price listNot published
LightRAG does not publish a web price list. For consumer apps that usually means pricing appears inside the product; for enterprise tools it means talking to sales. Why we do this
Visit github.comTrends
Price points are recorded when a price moves, not on a schedule, so a flat run means the price held. Release cadence comes from GitHub releases. A series appears only once we have watched it for long enough to have more than one observation.
What users actually say
We link to discussions rather than reproducing them. Opinions belong to their authors.
User reviews
No one has reviewed LightRAG here yet. Reviews are moderated before they appear, and our own score is editorial and separate from user ratings, though once reviews land they do lift it.
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Side by side
| Tool | Our score | From | Free tier | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LightRAG this page | 7.5 | - | Yes | ||
| Graphify | 7.6 | - | Yes | ||
| LlamaIndex | 7.6 | $1 | Yes | ||
| AnythingLLM | 7.5 | - | Yes | ||
| cognee | 7.1 | - | Yes | ||
| Qdrant | 6.8 | - | Yes | ||
| RAGFlow | 6.8 | - | Yes |
Questions
Is LightRAG free?
Yes. LightRAG advertises a free tier on its own site.
How much does LightRAG cost?
LightRAG does not publish a web price list. For consumer apps that usually means pricing appears inside the product; for enterprise tools it means talking to sales.
Is LightRAG open source?
Yes. LightRAG is a public repository released under MIT. You can self-host or inspect the source directly.
How is LightRAG scored here?
LightRAG scores 7.5 out of 10. That comes from a desk review of public evidence, which is capped at 8.5 out of 10: public pricing, documentation, maintenance signals and how much we could actually verify. Affiliate relationships are excluded from scoring entirely. The full rubric is published on our methodology page.