Pinecone vs Qdrant
Pinecone
pinecone.io
Qdrant
qdrant.techSide by side
| Figure | Pinecone | Qdrant |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 5 |
| Spec score · AI Search and Discovery Platforms Software | 8.7 (#2) | 7.8 (#14) |
| Spec score · Vector Databases | 8.9 (#2) | 8.0 (#9) |
| Spec score · Ai Databases | 8.9 (#3) | 8.0 (#14) |
| Spec score · Search Databases | 8.8 (#4) | 7.9 (#16) |
| Spec score · Database Software | 8.5 (#30) | 7.7 (#61) |
| Compliance | Pinecone states that it is SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant with a BAA available on request, and GDPR-ready. | Qdrant says its compliance documentation for SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA is available through its Trust Center. |
| Founded | 2019 | 2021 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, United States | Berlin, Germany |
| Integrations | The partner ecosystem covers AI and machine-learning tools, search, cloud infrastructure and services integrations. | Qdrant lists integrations including LangChain, LlamaIndex, Airbyte, Unstructured, DocArray, and AutoGen. |
| Product | Pinecone describes its product as a fully managed vector database built for AI workloads. | Qdrant is a vector similarity search engine with an API to store, search, and manage vectors with additional payload data. |
| Support | The Starter plan includes community support via Discord; paid plans include free support, and Enterprise includes Pro support. | The pricing page lists community support as Discord-only and paid support options with 10h/day business-hours or 24/7 coverage. |
Plans
Pinecone
- Builder$20 a month
- Standard$50 a month
- Enterprise$500 a month
- StarterFree
- Bring your own cloud (BYOC)Priced on request
Qdrant
- Free TierFree
- Hybrid CloudPriced on request
- Premium TierPriced on request
- Private CloudPriced on request
- Standard TierPriced on request
In their own words
Pinecone
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.
Qdrant
Qdrant is a vector similarity search engine and API for storing, searching, and managing vectors with payload data. A point can pair a vector with JSON metadata that filters search results. It supports dense, sparse, and multivector configurations, plus hybrid retrieval that combines semantic and lexical search. These capabilities can serve semantic search and recommendation systems. Qdrant can run locally with its Docker image or through Qdrant Cloud. REST and gRPC APIs are available, along with official client libraries for Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Rust, Go, .NET, and Java. Listed integrations include LangChain, LlamaIndex, Airbyte, Unstructured, DocArray, and AutoGen. The free cloud tier is intended for testing and prototypes, with a single-node cluster, 1GB RAM, and 4GB disk. Qdrant Cloud enables TLS and encryption at rest; self-hosted users must configure these controls, and authentication and encryption are off by default in self-hosted open-source deployments. Qdrant was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.