What is LlamaIndex?
LlamaIndex is an open-source framework, founded in 2023 by Jerry Liu and Simon Suo and headquartered in San Francisco, for building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and data agents on top of LLMs. The core library is MIT-licensed and available in Python and TypeScript, covering data ingestion, indexing, query engines and agent workflows. The README describes it as an open-source framework to build agentic applications.
In Python there are two ways to start. The llama-index package is a starter that includes core LlamaIndex and a selection of integrations, while llama-index-core lets you add only the integration packages you need. The README says there are over 300 integration packages for LLM, embedding and vector store providers. Data connectors ingest sources such as APIs, PDFs, docs and SQL, and the retrieval and query interfaces feed context to the model.
The company also runs LlamaCloud, a hosted platform. Its LlamaParse product covers Parse (agentic OCR across 130+ formats), Extract (structured extraction), Index (ingest, index and RAG pipelines), Split and Agents for building document agents. LlamaParse has a free plan with 10,000 credits per month, roughly 1000 pages, and LiteParse is a free local text parser.
The README notes that the company's current focus is document parsing and extraction, with the open-source framework still available as a toolkit.
Key capabilities
- Core framework Open-source Python/TypeScript library for indexing, retrieval and query engines.
- Agent workflows Primitives for building data-aware agents.
- LlamaCloud (paid) Hosted LlamaParse and LlamaExtract for parsing and structured extraction.
- Integrations Connectors for common vector stores, LLM providers and data sources.
Where LlamaIndex fits
- Agentic applications The open-source framework.
- Document parsing LlamaParse and LiteParse.
- Extraction and indexing LlamaParse workflows for hard documents.
- Integrations A large set of provider packages.
- Benchmarks ParseBench and ExtractBench for parsing and extraction.
Reviews of LlamaIndex
Be the first to share your experience with LlamaIndex.
Write a review
Loading review form…
Alternatives to LlamaIndex
Agent ZeroAgent Zero is an open-source, MIT-licensed AI agent that works in its own Dockerized Linux workspace with a terminal, browser and desktop apps.
CrewAICrewAI is an MIT-licensed open-source Python framework for orchestrating multi-agent AI workflows; CrewAI Enterprise adds a hosted runtime with a free Basic tier and custom-priced governance features.
Kortix CompanyOSSource-available platform for running AI agents across a company: event-triggered agents, 3,000+ connectors, per-session cloud computers, approvals and audit, from Kortix Cloud or a self-hosted Docker Compose stack.