---
title: "Concepts"
description: "Foundational concepts and architecture principles behind Weaviate's vector search and AI database capabilities."
url: https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts
---

# Concepts

The **Concepts** section explains various aspects related to Weaviate and its architecture to help you get the most out of it. You can read these sections in any order.

> [!NOTE]
>
> **Quickstart**
>
> If you are after a practical guide with code examples, check out the [quickstart tutorial](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/quickstart).

![Weaviate Academy](https://docs.weaviate.io/img/docs/weaviate-academy-purple.png)

#### Course: Key Concepts & Architecture

Become familiar with Weaviate's architecture, core concepts, and key capabilities. Understand how its features and integrations map to AI builders' needs.

[Open Academy Course](https://academy.weaviate.io/courses/wa050-py)

## Core concepts

**[Data structure](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/data)**

- How Weaviate deals with data objects, including how they are stored, represented, and linked to each other.

**[Modules](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/modules)**

- An overview of Weaviate's module system, including what can be done with modules, existing module types, and custom modules.

**[Indexing](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/indexing)**

- Read how data is indexed within Weaviate using inverted and ANN indexes, and about configurable settings.

**[Vector indexing](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/vector-index)**

- Read more about Weaviate's vector indexing architecture, such as the HNSW algorithm, distance metrics, and configurable settings.

**[Vector quantization](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/vector-quantization)**

- Read more about Weaviate's vector quantization options.

## Weaviate Architecture

The figure below gives a 30,000 feet view of Weaviate's architecture.

[![Weaviate module APIs overview](https://docs.weaviate.io/assets/images/weaviate-architecture-overview-54e15328eb9bdfe6695f85443d892f2e.svg "Weaviate System and Architecture Overview")](https://docs.weaviate.io/assets/files/weaviate-architecture-overview-54e15328eb9bdfe6695f85443d892f2e.svg)

You can learn more about the individual components in this figure by following these guides:

**[Learn about storage inside a shard](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/storage)**

- How Weaviate stores data
- How Weaviate makes writes durable
- How an inverted index, a vector index and an object store interact with each other

**[Ways to scale Weaviate horizontally](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/cluster)**

- Different motivations to scale
- Sharding vs. Replication
- Configuring a cluster
- Consistency

**[How to plan resources](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/resources)**

- The roles of CPU, Memory and GPUs
- How to size a cluster correctly
- Speeding up specific processes
- Preventing bottlenecks

**[Filtered vector search](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/filtering)**

- Combine vector search with filters
- Learn how combining an HNSW with an inverted index leads to high-recall, high-speed filtered queries

**[User-facing interfaces](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/interface)**

- Design philosophy behind user-facing APIs
- Role of the REST and GraphQL APIs

**[Replication architecture](https://docs.weaviate.io/weaviate/concepts/replication-architecture)**

- About replication
- Weaviate's implementation
- Use cases