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# Retrievers

:::info
Head to [Integrations](/docs/integrations/retrievers/) for documentation on built-in retriever integrations with 3rd-party tools.
:::

A retriever is an interface that returns documents given an unstructured query. It is more general than a vector store.
A retriever does not need to be able to store documents, only to return (or retrieve) it. Vector stores can be used
as the backbone of a retriever, but there are other types of retrievers as well.

## Get started

import GetStarted from "@snippets/modules/data_connection/retrievers/get_started.mdx"

<GetStarted/>

