Milvus vs Weaviate
M Milvus | W Weaviate | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | ⭐ 4.4 / 5 | ⭐ 4.4 / 5 |
| Category | Data & analytics | Data & analytics |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium |
| From | Free Milvus open source self-hosted; Zilliz Cloud Free (5 GB included); Standard starting at $0/month serverless or $126/GB/month dedicated; Enterprise starting at $197/month | Free open source self-hosted; free Weaviate Cloud (1 cluster); Flex starting at $45/month; Premium starting at $400/month |
| Ease of use | Advanced | Advanced |
| French interface | — | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Website | Visit → | Visit → |
Our verdict: Milvus
Best for projects anticipating billions of vectors that need a proven distributed architecture, either self-hosted or via Zilliz Cloud. Not for you for a first prototype or a small team without systems administration skills: the complexity of self-hosting Milvus is significantly higher than Chroma or Qdrant.
Our verdict: Weaviate
Best for development teams wanting hybrid search (vector and keyword) with the freedom of self-hosting or a managed service. Not for you if your team lacks in-house DevOps skills: configuring and sizing a Weaviate cluster requires more preparation than simpler vector databases like Chroma.
Still torn between Milvus and Weaviate?
We look at what you actually need and tell you which one to set up (or a third that fits better).
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