Arcana vs Voyage AI

Side-by-side comparison of features, pricing, and ratings

Analysis generated Live tool data as of 2026-10-30
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Arcana or Voyage AI: which should you choose?

DimensionArcanaVoyage AI
PricingFree (open-source, self-hosted)Contact for pricing (enterprise)
Best ForElixir developers building RAG into Phoenix appsEnterprise RAG on domain-specific data (finance, legal)
Key FeatureEmbeddable RAG library with agentic pipelines and dashboardDomain-specialized embedding models (voyage-3.5, rerank-2.5)
DeploymentSelf-hosted (embedded in Elixir app)API-based (cloud)
EcosystemElixir-only (Phoenix, Ecto, OTP)Works with any vector DB or LLM
Latest NewsNo recent newsAnnounced Voyage 4 series and multimodal model

For Elixir developers wanting an all-in-one, embeddable RAG solution without leaving the BEAM, Arcana is a no-brainer: free, open-source, and deeply integrated with Phoenix and Ecto. But for enterprises needing top-tier retrieval accuracy on specialized domains like finance or legal, Voyage AI's domain-tuned models and low-dimensional embeddings justify its contact-based pricing—especially with the new Voyage 4 series on the horizon. Choose based on your tech stack and need for domain specificity.

Arcana
Arcana

Embeddable RAG for Elixir and Phoenix — vector search, GraphRAG, and agentic retrieval inside your existing Ecto/Postgres repo.

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Voyage AI
Voyage AI

Voyage AI embedding models and rerankers for high-precision RAG retrieval, now part of MongoDB

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Pricing
Free
Paid
Plans
Open SourceFree
Pay-as-you-goUsage-based
Custom / On-premiseContact sales
Popularity
8 views
7.5k views
Skill Level
Intermediate
Intermediate
API Available
Platforms
WebAPI
WebAPI
Categories
🗄️ Vector Databases & Retrieval📦 LLM App Frameworks & SDKs
🗄️ Vector Databases & Retrieval
Features
Advanced RAG via Arcana.search/2 and Arcana.ask/2 with query rewriting
Hybrid semantic plus fulltext retrieval fused with Reciprocal Rank Fusion
Cross-encoder reranking via Bumblebee, local by default
GraphRAG with entity extraction, relationship linking, and Leiden community detection
Graph fusion that merges knowledge-graph results into vector search
Modular RAG via Arcana.Pipeline with replaceable step behaviours
Pipeline steps: gate, rewrite, select, expand, decompose, search, reason, rerank, answer, ground
Agentic RAG via Arcana.Loop with runtime tool selection, tool_history, and terminated_by
Controller/answerer split — cheap fast controller model plus a stronger answering model
NLI hallucination check via Pipeline.ground and Loop.ground with 0.0-1.0 faithfulness score
Self-correction modes (CRAG-inspired) on Pipeline.search/2 and Pipeline.answer/2
Local embeddings via Bumblebee on EXLA, EMLX (Apple Silicon), or Torchx
Cloud LLM model strings such as openai:gpt-4o-mini and zai:glm-4.5-flash
Pluggable behaviours for chunker, embedder, searcher, reranker, and answerer
Ingestion background jobs with Oban and an Igniter installer for migrations and dashboard route
General-purpose embedding models for search and RAG
Domain-specific embedders tuned for finance, legal, and code
Company-specific embedding models fine-tuned on proprietary data
voyage-multimodal-3.5 embeds images and text in one retrieval pipeline
voyage-context-3 pairs chunk-level detail with global document context
rerank-2.5 rerankers with instruction following to steer ranking
rerank-2.5-lite for a lower-cost price-performance point
3x-8x shorter vectors to cut vector search and storage costs
4x smaller model with faster inference
2x cheaper inference with superior accuracy
32K-token long-context support for embedding long documents
Batch API for large-scale embedding workloads
Plug-and-play with any vectorDB and any LLM
SaaS and in-VPC customer tenant deployment
SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance
Integrations
PostgreSQL
pgvector
Ecto
Phoenix LiveView
LiveDashboard
Bumblebee
EXLA
EMLX
Torchx
Oban
Igniter

Who should pick Arcana, and who should pick Voyage AI?

  • Elixir Phoenix developer building an internal Q&A bot
    Pick: Arcana

    Arcana is purpose-built for Elixir, integrates seamlessly with Phoenix and Ecto, and provides a dashboard out of the box—no need to stitch together separate services.

  • Enterprise legal team needing high-accuracy retrieval over contract documents
    Pick: Voyage AI

    Voyage AI offers a dedicated legal embedding model and rerankers with instruction following, tuned for legal jargon and long-context (32K tokens).

  • Startup with a mixed tech stack (e.g., Python backend) wanting flexible embedding API
    Pick: Voyage AI

    Voyage AI's API is stack-agnostic, works with any vector DB, and provides low-dimensional embeddings to keep storage costs down.

  • Elixir developer wanting to experiment with agentic RAG pipelines quickly
    Pick: Arcana

    Arcana has built-in agentic pipeline support, declarative config, and real-time streaming via LiveView—minimal boilerplate.

  • Solo founder building a document search tool on a budget
    Pick: Arcana

    Arcana is free and self-hosted; you only pay for infrastructure. Voyage AI's contact pricing may be prohibitive for small projects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Arcana vs Voyage AI: which should you choose?

For Elixir developers wanting an all-in-one, embeddable RAG solution without leaving the BEAM, Arcana is a no-brainer: free, open-source, and deeply integrated with Phoenix and Ecto. But for enterprises needing top-tier retrieval accuracy on specialized domains like finance or legal, Voyage AI's domain-tuned models and low-dimensional embeddings justify its contact-based pricing—especially with the new Voyage 4 series on the horizon. Choose based on your tech stack and need for domain specificity.

Can I use Voyage AI with a self-hosted vector database?

Yes, Voyage AI is API-based and integrates with any vector database (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector). It doesn't lock you into a specific backend.

Is Arcana only for Elixir?

Yes, Arcana is an Elixir library built on Phoenix and Ecto. It is not usable from other languages or frameworks.

Does Voyage AI offer free tier or trial?

Voyage AI pricing is contact-based. There is no public free tier; you likely need to request a demo or trial from sales.

Does Arcana support multimodal (image) embeddings?

No, Arcana currently works with text embeddings only. Voyage AI has announced voyage-multimodal-3.5 for multimodal retrieval.

Which tool is better for a large-scale legal document review?

Voyage AI, with its legal-domain model, long context (32K), and instruction-following reranker, is specifically designed for high-stakes enterprise retrieval in law.

Can I fine-tune Voyage AI models on my proprietary data?

Yes, Voyage AI offers company-specific fine-tuned models as part of its enterprise offering (custom fine-tuning).

Does Arcana have a web interface or dashboard?

Yes, Arcana ships with a built-in dashboard for monitoring and debugging RAG pipelines, integrated into Phoenix LiveView.

Is there any recent update from Voyage AI?

Voyage AI announced the upcoming Voyage 4 model series and voyage-multimodal-3.5 for multimodal embeddings, expanding beyond text.

What else are Arcana and Voyage AI compared with?

Where can you read more about Arcana and Voyage AI?

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