kitio.aiPinecone vs Milvus
A side-by-side look at pricing plans, free tiers, features, pros and cons, updated for 2026. Pinecone starts at $20/mo and Milvus starts at See pricing page. Check both pricing pages for current plans.
At a glance
Best for
Category
Pricing model
Starting price
Free plan
Made by
Based in
Rating
Key features
- Serverless indexes
- Hybrid dense and sparse search
- Metadata filtering
- Hosted embeddings and rerank
- pg_pinecone extension
- Distributed architecture
- Many index types
- GPU indexing
- Hybrid search
- Milvus Lite
| Feature | Pinecone | Milvus |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Managed serverless vector database for search and RAG | Open-source vector database built for billion-scale search |
| Category | Models & APIs | Models & APIs |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium |
| Starting price | $20/mo | See pricing page |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Made by | Pinecone | Zilliz |
| Based in | United States | United States |
| Rating | No ratings yet | No ratings yet |
| Key features |
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Pricing compared
Pinecone starts at $20/mo and Milvus starts at See pricing page. Check both pricing pages for current plans.
Free plan
Cheapest paid plan
Top plan
Free trial
4 plans
Starter
Free
- Up to 2 GB storage
- 2M write, 1M read units/mo
- AWS only
Builder
$20/mo
- Flat monthly price
- Up to 10 GB storage
- Multiple projects and users
Standard
$50/mo
- Minimum usage, then pay as you go
- 3-week trial with $300 credits
- Backup and restore
Enterprise
$500/mo
- Minimum usage, then pay as you go
- 99.95% uptime SLA
- Private endpoints, audit logs
Prices in USD, checked Oct 28, 2026 or later. Plans change often, so confirm on each tool's site before you buy.
Pros and cons
Pinecone
- No infrastructure to manage
- Scales to billions of vectors
- Free starter tier
- Monthly minimum on paid plans
- Closed-source core service
- Costs grow with heavy reads
Milvus
- Scales to billions of vectors
- Wide index choice
- Managed option via Zilliz
- Complex to run distributed
- Many components to operate
- Overkill for small apps
Which one should you choose?
Choose Pinecone if you want:
- No infrastructure to manage
- Scales to billions of vectors
- Free starter tier
Watch out: monthly minimum on paid plans.
Choose Milvus if you want:
- Scales to billions of vectors
- Wide index choice
- Managed option via Zilliz
Watch out: complex to run distributed.
Pinecone vs Milvus FAQ
What is the difference between Pinecone and Milvus?
Pinecone: Managed serverless vector database for search and RAG. Milvus: Open-source vector database built for billion-scale search. Both are models & apis tools.
Is Pinecone or Milvus cheaper?
Pinecone starts at $20/mo and Milvus starts at See pricing page. Check both pricing pages for current plans.
Do Pinecone and Milvus have free plans?
Pinecone: Yes. Milvus: Yes.
Who makes Pinecone?
Pinecone is made by Pinecone, based in United States.
Who makes Milvus?
Milvus is made by Zilliz, based in United States.
Which should I choose, Pinecone or Milvus?
Choose Pinecone if you value no infrastructure to manage and scales to billions of vectors. Choose Milvus if you value scales to billions of vectors and wide index choice.