Which Qdrant Deployment Do I Need?

Start with what you need: managed ops or full control? Network latency acceptable or not? Production or prototyping? The answer narrows to one of four options.

Getting Started or Prototyping

Use when: building a prototype, running tests, CI/CD pipelines, or learning Qdrant.

Use local mode (Python only): zero-dependency, in-memory or disk-persisted, no server needed Local mode
Local mode data format is NOT compatible with server. Do not use for production or benchmarking.
For a real server locally, use Docker Quick start

Going to Production (Self-Hosted)

Use when: you need full control over infrastructure, data residency, or custom configuration.

Docker is the default deployment. Full Qdrant Open Source feature set, minimal setup. Quick start
You own operations: upgrades, backups, scaling, monitoring
Must set up distributed mode manually for multi-node clusters Distributed deployment
Consider Hybrid Cloud if you want Qdrant Cloud management on your infrastructure Hybrid Cloud

Going to Production (Zero-Ops)

Use when: you want managed infrastructure with zero-downtime updates, automatic backups, and resharding without operating clusters yourself.

Qdrant Cloud handles upgrades, scaling, backups, and monitoring Qdrant Cloud
Supports multi-version upgrades automatically
Provides features not available in self-hosted: /sys_metrics, managed resharding, pre-configured alerts

Need Lowest Possible Latency

Use when: network round-trip to a server is unacceptable. Edge devices, in-process search, or latency-critical applications.

Qdrant EDGE: in-process bindings to Qdrant shard-level functions, no network overhead Qdrant EDGE
Same data format as server. Can sync with server via shard snapshots.
Single-node feature set only. No distributed mode.

What NOT to Do