Two Stage Retrieval With Dense Sparse Hybrid Search

via “hybrid dense-sparse vector search with combined scoring”

Qdrant - High-performance, massive-scale Vector Database and Vector Search Engine for the next generation of AI. Also available in the cloud https://cloud.qdrant.io/

Unique: Implements sparse vector search via inverted indices with native integration into the same query pipeline as dense search, allowing single-pass hybrid queries without separate sparse/dense index lookups or post-processing merging

vs others: More efficient than post-hoc result merging from separate dense and sparse indices because filtering and scoring happen in a unified query execution path, reducing latency by 30-50% compared to two-stage retrieval