Pinecone
pinecone.io
What it is
Pinecone is a fully managed vector database for AI workloads, available through web and API access. Its stated uses include semantic search, recommendations and retrieval-augmented generation. It supports dense, sparse and full-text indexes, metadata filters and namespaces; the maker says automatic indexing makes new writes searchable within seconds. Listed integrations include LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI, Cohere, Databricks, Snowflake and Airbyte. The free Starter plan has limits including one project, two users, five indexes and 100 namespaces per index. Builder costs $20 a month. Standard is $50 a month minimum applied to usage, with usage above that minimum charged pay-as-you-go; Enterprise is $500 a month minimum on the same basis. Pinecone says it encrypts data at rest and in transit and supports API-key roles and RBAC. It lists SOC 2 Type II certification, HIPAA compliance with a BAA available on request, GDPR readiness and a 99.95% uptime SLA. Its TypeScript SDK is intended for server-side use because browser use can expose API keys.
Spec sheet
- What it does
- Pinecone is a fully managed vector database and AI knowledge platform for semantic search, recommendations, retrieval-augmented generation and agent applications.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Product
- Pinecone describes its product as a fully managed vector database built for AI workloads.Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Free plan
- YesRead 22 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Paid from
- 20Read 22 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- API
- Pinecone exposes REST and gRPC APIs for index administration and vector or document operations.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Integrations
- The partner ecosystem covers AI and machine-learning tools, search, cloud infrastructure and services integrations.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Security
- Pinecone states that it encrypts data at rest and in transit using AES-256 and supports API key roles and RBAC.Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Compliance
- Pinecone states that it is SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant with a BAA available on request, and GDPR-ready.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Support
- The Starter plan includes community support via Discord; paid plans include free support, and Enterprise includes Pro support.Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Headquarters
- New York City, New York, United StatesRead 28 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Founded
- 2019Read 28 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Browser SDK limitation
- Pinecone's TypeScript SDK documentation says the SDK is intended for server-side use only because browser use can expose API keys.Read 30 Sep 2026 · sdk.pinecone.io
- BYOC deployment
- BYOC runs Pinecone in a customer's cloud account and VPC using outbound-only operations and private connectivity options.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- CLI installation
- The Pinecone CLI can be installed on macOS or Linux with an install script or Homebrew cask.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Company founded
- Pinecone was founded in 2019 by Edo Liberty.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Company headquarters
- LinkedIn lists New York, New York as headquarters and the company size as 51–200 employees.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Company legal name
- The registered company name is Pinecone Systems, Inc.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Company profile
- Crunchbase classifies Pinecone as a private New York AI infrastructure and database company with 101–250 employees.Read 15 Oct 2026 · crunchbase.com
- Documentation depth
- Documentation includes conceptual guides, API references, SDK references, production checklists, import guidance and release notes.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.pinecone.io
- Full-text search
- Full-text search adds BM25 ranking, Lucene syntax, fuzzy matching and text-match filters, with tokenization and stemming for 18 languages.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Hybrid search
- Pinecone supports combined dense semantic and sparse keyword retrieval in the same database.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Indexing
- Pinecone says indexing is automatic and writes become searchable within seconds.Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Licence
- The database platform is proprietary closed-source hosted software rather than an open-source product.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Limit: cost visibility
- G2 reviewers say pricing becomes difficult to predict as vectors, storage and query volume grow and request clearer usage estimates.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
- Limit: data residency
- GitShowcase lists the lack of an on-premises option as a problem for some data-residency cases.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gitshowcase.com
- Limit: deployment constraints
- G2 feedback identifies lack of local or fully on-premises deployment, eventual consistency and metadata constraints as trade-offs.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
- Limit: learning curve
- G2 reviewers report that embeddings, dimensions, indexes, namespaces and similarity-search concepts take time for newcomers to learn.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
- Limit: scale cost
- GitShowcase reviewers report that costs can rise sharply at hundreds of millions of vectors compared with self-hosting.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gitshowcase.com
- Marketplace capabilities
- Microsoft Marketplace highlights filtering, live index updates, hybrid keyword boosting, APIs, SDKs and Pinecone Assistant.Read 15 Oct 2026 · marketplace.microsoft.com
- Metadata filtering
- Metadata fields can be attached to vectors and used to restrict search results with filters.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Notable news: BYOC
- Pinecone announced general availability of Bring Your Own Cloud on September 23, 2026.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Notable news: full-text search
- Pinecone announced full-text search general availability on September 9, 2026.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Pinecone Assistant
- Assistant provides document ingestion and managed retrieval workflows for production chat and agent applications.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Pinecone Nexus
- Nexus compiles enterprise data into governed knowledge that agents can query through a single interface.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Praise: ease and speed
- G2 reviewers repeatedly praise quick setup, simple APIs, clean console operation and fast semantic retrieval for RAG projects.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
- Praise: operations
- GitShowcase reviewers commonly cite automatic scaling, low operational burden, consistent latency and effective hybrid search.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gitshowcase.com
- Rating on G2
- 4.4 out of 5 from 78 reviews.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
- Rating on GitShowcase
- 8.9 out of 10 from 24 verified reviewers.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gitshowcase.com
- Rating on Microsoft Marketplace
- 4.5 out of 5 from 62 ratings.Read 15 Oct 2026 · marketplace.microsoft.com
- Reliability
- Pinecone advertises a 99.95% uptime SLA and says deployments span multiple availability zones.Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- SDKs
- Official SDKs include Python, TypeScript/Node.js, Java, Go and .NET clients.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Search
- The database supports dense, sparse, and full-text indexes, metadata filters, and namespaces.Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Security controls
- Official security materials state AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.2 in transit, RBAC, API-key roles, audit logs, private endpoints and customer-managed keys.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Self-hosting status
- An independent database catalogue describes Pinecone as managed-only with no self-hosted edition; BYOC remains proprietary.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Serverless architecture
- Its serverless design separates object-storage data from query compute so storage and processing scale independently.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
- Starter limits
- The pricing page lists Starter limits of one project, up to two users, up to five indexes, and 100 namespaces per index.Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- TypeScript requirements
- The TypeScript SDK requires TypeScript 5.2 or newer and Node.js 22 or newer.Read 15 Oct 2026 · sdk.pinecone.io
- Use cases
- Pinecone identifies semantic search, recommendations, and retrieval-augmented generation as use cases for its database.Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
- Vector search
- The service stores dense and sparse vectors and performs approximate nearest-neighbor similarity search.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
Plans and prices
Builder $20 a month flat monthly Everything in Starter · increased usage limits · selectable cloud and region · multiple projects/users · Prometheus and Datadog monitoring · free support Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
Standard $50 a month minimum monthly usage, then pay-as-you-go; 3-week trial includes $300 credits Everything in Builder · selectable cloud and region · dedicated read nodes · object-storage import · backup/restore · RBAC · SAML SSO · HIPAA add-on · free support Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
Enterprise $500 a month minimum monthly usage, then pay-as-you-go Everything in Standard · 99.95% uptime SLA · BYOC · private endpoints · customer-managed encryption keys · audit logs · service accounts · SAML roles · SCIM · HIPAA compliance · Pro support Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
Starter Free Dense, sparse and full-text indexes · console metrics · community Discord support · up to 5 indexes · 100 namespaces/index · 2 GB storage · 2M write units/month · 1M read units/month Read 15 Oct 2026 · pinecone.io
Bring your own cloud (BYOC) Priced on request Contact Pinecone for pricing Runs in your cloud account and VPC · Pro support included Read 30 Sep 2026 · pinecone.io
Strong points and limits
Strong points
- Starter is free with limits on projects, users and indexes.
- Supports dense, sparse and full-text indexes.
- Automatic indexing makes writes searchable within seconds, according to the maker.
- Supports API-key roles and RBAC.
Limits
- Standard has a 50.00 USD monthly minimum applied to usage.
- Enterprise has a 500.00 USD monthly minimum applied to usage.
- TypeScript SDK is intended for server-side use only.
Who it suits
Pinecone suits developers building semantic search, recommendations or retrieval-augmented generation applications. Its API and listed integrations support teams connecting a vector database to AI and data tools.
Verdict
Pinecone offers managed vector search capabilities with multiple index types, integrations and usage-based paid tiers. Review Starter limits, minimum charges and the server-side SDK restriction before adopting it.
Where Specifiction places it
- AWS Marketplace Software#2 of 318.8
- AI Search and Discovery Platforms Software#2 of 288.7
- Vector Databases#2 of 278.9
- Ai Databases#3 of 408.9
- Search Databases#4 of 308.8
- Database Software#30 of 748.5
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