superbit

A lightweight, in-memory vector index for approximate nearest-neighbor (ANN) search using Locality-Sensitive Hashing.

Overview

superbit provides fast approximate nearest-neighbor search over high-dimensional vectors without the operational overhead of a full vector database. It implements random hyperplane LSH (SimHash), a locality-sensitive hashing scheme that hashes similar vectors into the same buckets with high probability. Candidate vectors retrieved from the hash tables are then re-ranked with an exact distance computation, giving a good balance between speed and recall.

Target use cases:

• Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) prototyping
• Recommendation system experiments
• Embedding similarity search during development
• Anywhere you need sub-linear ANN queries and want to avoid external infrastructure

Features

• Random hyperplane LSH (SimHash) for cosine, Euclidean, and dot-product similarity
• Multi-probe querying -- probe neighboring hash buckets to improve recall without adding more tables
• Thread-safe concurrent access via parking_lot::RwLock (parallel reads, exclusive writes)
• Builder pattern for ergonomic index configuration
• Auto-tuning -- suggest_params recommends num_hashes, num_tables, and num_probes given a target recall and dataset size
• Runtime metrics -- lock-free atomic counters track query latency, candidate counts, and bucket hit rates
• Optional features:
  • parallel -- parallel bulk insert and batch query via rayon
  • persistence -- save/load indexes to disk with serde + bincode (or JSON)
  • python -- Python bindings via PyO3

Architecture

Module Structure

graph TD
    A[<b>LshIndex</b><br/>Public API] --> B[RwLock&lt;IndexInner&gt;<br/>Thread-safe wrapper]
    A --> M[MetricsCollector<br/>Atomic counters]

    B --> V[vectors<br/>HashMap&lt;id, Array1&lt;f32&gt;&gt;]
    B --> T[tables<br/>Vec&lt;HashMap&lt;u64, Vec&lt;id&gt;&gt;&gt;]
    B --> H[hashers<br/>Vec&lt;RandomProjectionHasher&gt;]
    B --> C[IndexConfig]

    H --> |"sign(dot(v, proj))"| T

    subgraph Optional Features
        P[parallel<br/>rayon batch ops]
        S[persistence<br/>serde + bincode/JSON]
        PY[python<br/>PyO3 bindings]
    end

    A -.-> P
    A -.-> S
    A -.-> PY

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Query Flow

flowchart LR
    Q[Query Vector] --> N{Normalize?}
    N -->|Cosine| NORM[L2 Normalize]
    N -->|Other| HASH
    NORM --> HASH

    HASH[Hash with L Hashers] --> PROBE[Multi-probe:<br/>flip uncertain bits]

    PROBE --> T1[Table 1<br/>base + probes]
    PROBE --> T2[Table 2<br/>base + probes]
    PROBE --> TL[Table L<br/>base + probes]

    T1 --> UNION[Candidate Union<br/>deduplicate IDs]
    T2 --> UNION
    TL --> UNION

    UNION --> RANK[Exact Re-rank<br/>compute true distance]
    RANK --> TOPK[Return Top-K]

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Insert Flow

flowchart LR
    I[Insert: id, vector] --> DUP{ID exists?}
    DUP -->|Yes| REM[Remove old<br/>hash entries]
    DUP -->|No| NORM
    REM --> NORM{Normalize?}
    NORM -->|Cosine| DO_NORM[L2 Normalize]
    NORM -->|Other| STORE
    DO_NORM --> STORE

    STORE[Compute L hashes] --> BUCK[Push id into<br/>L hash buckets]
    BUCK --> VEC[Store vector in<br/>central HashMap]

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Quick Start

Add the crate to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
superbit_lsh = "0.1"

Build an index, insert vectors, and query:

use superbit::{LshIndex, DistanceMetric};

fn main() -> superbit::Result<()> {
    // Build a 128-dimensional index with cosine similarity.
    let index = LshIndex::builder()
        .dim(128)
        .num_hashes(8)
        .num_tables(16)
        .num_probes(3)
        .distance_metric(DistanceMetric::Cosine)
        .seed(42)
        .build()?;

    // Insert vectors (ID, slice).
    let v = vec![0.1_f32; 128];
    index.insert(0, &v)?;

    let v2 = vec![0.2_f32; 128];
    index.insert(1, &v2)?;

    // Query for the 5 nearest neighbors.
    let results = index.query(&v, 5)?;
    for r in &results {
        println!("id={} distance={:.4}", r.id, r.distance);
    }

    Ok(())
}

Feature Flags

Flag	Effect
parallel	Parallel bulk insert and batch query via rayon
persistence	Save/load index to disk (serde + bincode + JSON)
python	Python bindings via PyO3
full	Enables parallel + persistence

Enable features in your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
superbit_lsh = { version = "0.1", features = ["full"] }

Configuration Guide

The three main knobs that control the speed/recall/memory trade-off are:

Parameter	What it controls	Higher value means
num_hashes	Hash bits per table (1--64)	Fewer, more precise buckets; lower recall per table but less wasted work
num_tables	Number of independent hash tables	Better recall (more chances to find a neighbor); more memory
num_probes	Extra neighboring buckets probed per table	Better recall without adding tables; slightly more query time

Rules of thumb:

• Start with the defaults (num_hashes=8, num_tables=16, num_probes=3) and measure recall on a held-out set.
• If recall is too low, increase num_tables or num_probes first.
• If queries are too slow (too many candidates), increase num_hashes to make buckets more selective.
• For cosine similarity the index L2-normalizes vectors on insertion by default (normalize_vectors=true).

Auto-Tuning

Use suggest_params to get a starting configuration based on your dataset size and target recall:

use superbit::{suggest_params, DistanceMetric};

let params = suggest_params(
    0.90,                    // target recall
    100_000,                 // expected dataset size
    768,                     // vector dimensionality
    DistanceMetric::Cosine,  // distance metric
);

println!("Suggested: hashes={}, tables={}, probes={}, est. recall={:.2}",
    params.num_hashes, params.num_tables, params.num_probes, params.estimated_recall);

You can also estimate the recall of a specific configuration without building an index:

use superbit::{estimate_recall, DistanceMetric};

let recall = estimate_recall(16, 8, 2, DistanceMetric::Cosine);
println!("Estimated recall: {:.2}", recall);

Performance

LSH-based indexing provides sub-linear query time by reducing the search space to a small set of candidate vectors. In practice:

• For datasets under ~10,000 vectors, brute-force linear scan is often fast enough and gives exact results. LSH adds overhead that may not pay off at this scale.
• For datasets above ~10,000 vectors, LSH becomes increasingly beneficial. Query time grows much more slowly than dataset size.
• With well-tuned parameters you can typically achieve 80--95% recall while examining only a small fraction of the dataset.

The parallel feature flag enables rayon-based parallelism for bulk inserts (par_insert_batch) and batch queries (par_query_batch), which can significantly speed up workloads that operate on many vectors at once.

Use the built-in metrics collector (.enable_metrics() on the builder) to monitor query latency, candidate counts, and bucket hit rates in production.

Comparison with Other Rust ANN Crates

Crate	Algorithm	Notes
superbit	Random hyperplane LSH	Lightweight, pure Rust, no C/C++ deps. Good for prototyping and moderate-scale workloads.
usearch	HNSW	High performance, C++ core with Rust bindings. Better for large-scale production.
hora	HNSW / IVF-PQ	Pure Rust, multiple algorithms. More complex API.
hnsw_rs	HNSW	Pure Rust HNSW implementation.

superbit is intentionally simple: a single algorithm, a small API surface, and no native dependencies. It is a good fit for prototyping, moderate-scale applications, and situations where you want to understand and control the indexing behavior. For very large datasets (millions of vectors) or when you need maximum throughput, a graph-based index like HNSW will generally outperform LSH.

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0
• MIT License

at your option.