{
  "altLabels": [
    "Bi-Encoder"
  ],
  "definition": "A neural architecture that encodes the two sides of a matching problem independently, such as a query and a document, and compares their resulting representations using a similarity or scoring function.",
  "derivedRelations": [
    {
      "target": "single-vector-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "id": "dual-encoder",
  "kind": "Method",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "links": [
    {
      "label": "Sentence Transformers documentation",
      "type": "officialHomepage",
      "url": "https://www.sbert.net/"
    }
  ],
  "modifiedAt": "2026-09-12T22:23:29Z",
  "prefLabel": "Dual Encoder",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "Searchplex",
    "url": "https://searchplex.net/"
  },
  "relations": [
    {
      "note": "Dual encoders encode each side independently; cross-encoders process the pair jointly.",
      "target": "cross-encoder",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "A dense encoder maps one input to a dense vector; a dual encoder applies encoders to two sides of a matching problem and compares the representations.",
      "target": "dense-encoder",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "A dual encoder is an architecture or method; dense retrieval is retrieval using dense representations and is commonly implemented with dual encoders.",
      "target": "dense-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "cross-encoder",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "dense-encoder",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "dense-passage-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "dense-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "retrieve-and-rerank",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "candidate-retrieval",
      "type": "usedFor"
    },
    {
      "target": "first-stage-ranking",
      "type": "usedFor"
    }
  ],
  "representations": {
    "html": "https://id.searchplex.net/dual-encoder/",
    "json": "https://id.searchplex.net/dual-encoder.json",
    "jsonld": "https://id.searchplex.net/dual-encoder.jsonld"
  },
  "scheme": "https://id.searchplex.net/scheme/",
  "scopeNote": "In information retrieval, a dual encoder commonly uses separate query and document encoding paths so document representations can be computed ahead of time and efficiently searched. The two encoders may use separate parameters or share some or all parameters. Bi-encoder is commonly used as an equivalent term.",
  "status": "published",
  "terms": [
    {
      "community": "industry",
      "label": "Two-Tower Model",
      "usage": "communityPreferred"
    }
  ],
  "uri": "https://id.searchplex.net/dual-encoder/"
}