Download & Install

Pre-built native RPM and DEB packages for the Vchord extension suite (vchord, vchord_bm25, and pg_tokenizer) are published across 16 Linux OS / CPU architecture targets (el8, el9, el10, d12, d13, u22, u24, u26 × x86_64 / aarch64) for PostgreSQL 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 (240 binary packages in total).

Quick Installation

1 · Install with PIG Package Manager (Recommended)

We strongly recommend installing the Vchord extension suite with pig — the PostgreSQL package manager maintained by PGSTY. pig is a single static Go binary that automatically detects your Linux distribution and CPU architecture, configures the upstream PGDG and Pigsty repositories, and resolves extension dependencies (pgvector) in one command.

# 1. Install the pig CLI package manager
curl -fsSL https://repo.pigsty.io/pig | bash

# 2. Configure PGDG + Pigsty PGSQL repositories and update repo cache
pig repo add pgsql -u

# 3. Install vchord, vchord_bm25, and pg_tokenizer (auto-detects active PG version, or pass -v 18)
pig install vchord vchord_bm25 pg_tokenizer

# 1. Install the pig CLI via the mainland China mirror
curl -fsSL https://repo.pigsty.cc/pig | bash

# 2. Configure repositories using the China CDN mirror (-r china)
pig repo add pgsql -u -r china

# 3. Install vchord, vchord_bm25, and pg_tokenizer (or specify PG major version with -v 18)
pig install vchord vchord_bm25 pg_tokenizer

# Once the Pigsty APT repository is configured, install for your PostgreSQL major version (e.g. PG 18):
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
  postgresql-18-vchord \
  postgresql-18-vchord-bm25 \
  postgresql-18-pg-tokenizer

# Once the Pigsty YUM repository is configured, install for your PostgreSQL major version (e.g. PG 18):
sudo dnf install -y \
  vchord_18 \
  vchord_bm25_18 \
  pg_tokenizer_18

2 · Preload Shared Libraries & Enable Extensions

All three extensions require registering their shared libraries in shared_preload_libraries and restarting PostgreSQL before running CREATE EXTENSION:

-- 1. Register shared libraries in postgresql.conf via ALTER SYSTEM
ALTER SYSTEM SET shared_preload_libraries = 'vchord.so, vchord_bm25.so, pg_tokenizer.so';

Restart PostgreSQL (sudo systemctl restart postgresql-18 or pig pg restart), then connect to your target database and enable the extensions:

-- 2. Enable the extensions (CASCADE automatically installs pgvector for vchord)
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vchord CASCADE;
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vchord_bm25 CASCADE;
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pg_tokenizer CASCADE;

3 · Container Images & GitHub Releases

For local evaluation, CI pipelines, or containerized deployments, official Docker images come with PostgreSQL 18 and the extensions pre-installed and preloaded:

# Includes PostgreSQL 18 + pgvector + vchord + vchord_bm25 + pg_tokenizer
docker run -d \
  --name vchord-suite \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres \
  -p 5432:5432 \
  tensorchord/vchord-suite:pg18-latest

# Includes PostgreSQL 18 + pgvector + vchord v1.1.1
docker run -d \
  --name vchord-postgres \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres \
  -p 5432:5432 \
  ghcr.io/tensorchord/vchord-postgres:pg18-v1.1.1

1 · vchord — Scalable Vector Search

vchord (v1.1.1) is the core RaBitQ-powered vector similarity search extension (vchordrq and vchordg index access methods). It depends on the vector (pgvector) extension.

Availability Matrix (vchord)

Package Downloads (vchord)

2 · vchord_bm25 — Native BM25 Ranking Index

vchord_bm25 (v0.3.0) provides native Okapi BM25 full-text ranking indexes (USING bm25) and Block-WeakAnd Top-K search (<&>) inside PostgreSQL.

Availability Matrix (vchord_bm25)

Package Downloads (vchord_bm25)

3 · pg_tokenizer — Multilingual Text Analyzer

pg_tokenizer (v0.1.1) provides customizable in-database text analysis pipelines, pre-tokenizers (Unicode, Jieba, Lindera), stemmers, stopword/synonym filters, and vocabulary models.

Availability Matrix (pg_tokenizer)

Package Downloads (pg_tokenizer)

Verification & Build Repositories

All RPM and DEB packages in the Pigsty PGSQL repository are GPG-signed and verified automatically by dnf / apt once configured via pig repo add pgsql. Every package is built transparently from open-source build specs: