kitio.aiPinecone vs Turbopuffer
A side-by-side look at pricing plans, free tiers, features, pros and cons, updated for 2026. Turbopuffer has the lower starting price: about $16 a month, against $20 for Pinecone.
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
- Object storage backend
- Vector and full-text search
- Massive namespace counts
- Metadata filtering
- Usage-based pricing
| Feature | Pinecone | Turbopuffer |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Managed serverless vector database for search and RAG | Serverless vector and full-text search built on object storage |
| Category | Models & APIs | Models & APIs |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Paid |
| Starting price | $20/mo | $16/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Made by | Pinecone | Turbopuffer |
| Based in | United States | – |
| Rating | No ratings yet | No ratings yet |
| Key features |
|
|
Both offer: Metadata filtering.
Pricing compared
Turbopuffer has the lower starting price: about $16 a month, against $20 for Pinecone.
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
3 plans
Launch
$16/mo
- Minimum usage, billed on usage
- All database features
- Community Slack and email support
Scale
$256/mo
- Minimum usage
- HIPAA-ready BAA
- SSO and audit logs
- Private Slack channel
Enterprise
From $4,096/mo
- Single-tenancy and BYOC
- Private networking
- 24/7 support with SLA
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
Turbopuffer
- Very low storage cost
- Great for per-user indexes
- Simple API
- Cold queries are slower
- Monthly minimum spend
- Closed source
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 Turbopuffer if you want:
- Very low storage cost
- Great for per-user indexes
- Simple API
Watch out: cold queries are slower.
Pinecone vs Turbopuffer FAQ
What is the difference between Pinecone and Turbopuffer?
Pinecone: Managed serverless vector database for search and RAG. Turbopuffer: Serverless vector and full-text search built on object storage. Both are models & apis tools.
Is Pinecone or Turbopuffer cheaper?
Turbopuffer has the lower starting price: about $16 a month, against $20 for Pinecone.
Do Pinecone and Turbopuffer have free plans?
Pinecone: Yes. Turbopuffer: No.
Who makes Pinecone?
Pinecone is made by Pinecone, based in United States.
Who makes Turbopuffer?
Turbopuffer is made by Turbopuffer.
Which should I choose, Pinecone or Turbopuffer?
Choose Pinecone if you value no infrastructure to manage and scales to billions of vectors. Choose Turbopuffer if you value very low storage cost and great for per-user indexes.