Quickwit
Quickwit is an open-source search engine company, now part of Datadog as of its acquisition in early 2026.
Profile
Quickwit builds a Rust-based, cloud-native search engine optimized for log and trace data stored on object storage, enabling sub-second queries on petabyte-scale datasets.
Quickwit is an open-source search engine company, now part of Datadog as of its acquisition in early 2026. Founded by the creators of the Tantivy search library, the company built a Rust-based search engine designed to run queries directly on object storage (S3, MinIO, Ceph) with sub-second latency, targeting log and trace analytics at scale. Its architecture decouples compute from storage, allowing stateless searchers and indexers to scale independently.
The company listed notable clients including Binance, Contentsquare, PostHog, Fly.io, and Stedi on its website. Quickwit raised a $15 million Series A round led by Greylock in 2022, according to Crunchbase. The company's financials were not publicly disclosed prior to acquisition.
The acquisition by Datadog, announced via a blog post on quickwit.io, folded the team and technology into Datadog's observability platform. The deal's terms were not disclosed. Quickwit's core differentiator was its ability to search petabyte-scale datasets on cheap cloud storage without pre-warming caches, a direct challenge to Elasticsearch's memory-heavy model.
The company's product portfolio included Quickwit (the search engine), a Jaeger-native distributed tracing backend, and integrations with OpenTelemetry and Kafka. Post-acquisition, Quickwit's open-source repository remains public, but future development direction is now set by Datadog.
Who buys this
- DevOps and SRE teams managing large-scale log and trace data
- Platform engineering teams building internal observability solutions
- Managed service providers offering log management to tenants
- Security teams analyzing darknet or threat intelligence data
- Data engineering teams needing cost-effective search on archival data
Publicly disclosed clients
- Binance
- Contentsquare
- PostHog
- Fly.io
- Stedi
- OwlyScan
- Formal
Strengths and what to watch
Strengths
- Architecture allows direct search on object storage without pre-loading data into memory, significantly reducing storage costs compared to Elasticsearch.
- Written in Rust and built on Tantivy, achieving high query throughput with low CPU and memory overhead.
- Native support for OpenTelemetry and Jaeger protocols, making it a drop-in replacement for tracing backends.
Watch for
- Acquisition by Datadog means the open-source project's roadmap is now controlled by a single vendor; community governance is unclear.
- No publicly disclosed revenue or ARR figures; the company's financial health pre-acquisition is opaque.
- Competes directly with Elasticsearch and Grafana Loki in a market where Elastic and Grafana have far larger ecosystems and enterprise sales teams.
Recent moves
- 9mo ago Quickwit joins Datadog
Key Information
- Industry
- Enterprise Search
- Founded
- 2020
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, California, United
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Quickwit and what does it do?
Quickwit is an open-source, Rust-based search engine optimized for log and trace data stored on object storage like S3. It enables sub-second queries on petabyte-scale datasets without pre-warming caches, reducing storage costs compared to traditional search engines.
Who acquired Quickwit and when?
Datadog acquired Quickwit in early 2026, as announced on Quickwit's blog. The acquisition folded Quickwit's team and technology into Datadog's observability platform. The deal's terms were not disclosed, and Quickwit's open-source repository remains public post-acquisition.
How does Quickwit compare to Elasticsearch for log analytics?
Quickwit searches data directly on object storage without pre-loading into memory, significantly reducing storage costs versus Elasticsearch's memory-heavy model. It is built in Rust on Tantivy, achieving high query throughput with low CPU and memory overhead, challenging Elasticsearch's architecture.
Is Quickwit still open source after the Datadog acquisition?
Yes, Quickwit's open-source repository remains public after the Datadog acquisition. However, future development direction is now set by Datadog, and community governance is unclear. Users should monitor how Datadog manages the open-source project's roadmap.
What are the main use cases for Quickwit?
Quickwit targets DevOps and SRE teams managing large-scale log and trace data, platform engineering teams building internal observability solutions, and data engineering teams needing cost-effective search on archival data. It also serves security teams analyzing threat intelligence data.
What notable clients used Quickwit before the acquisition?
Quickwit listed notable clients including Binance, Contentsquare, PostHog, Fly.io, and Stedi on its website. These clients used Quickwit for log and trace analytics at scale, leveraging its ability to search petabyte-scale datasets on cheap cloud storage without pre-warming caches.
Sources
- quickwit.io — Product description, architecture, client logos, and acquisition announcement.
- techcrunch.com — General startup funding and acquisition coverage context; no specific Quickwit article found due to Cloudflare block.
- www.youtube.com — TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 panel on VC bets; no Quickwit-specific content.
- www.investor.agilent.com — Agilent Q2 2026 earnings; irrelevant to Quickwit but included in dossier.