Pinecone vs turbopuffer
Pinecone
pinecone.io
turbopuffer
turbopuffer.comSide by side
| Figure | Pinecone | turbopuffer |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | $16/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 3 |
| Spec score · Vector Databases | 8.9 (#2) | 7.5 (#18) |
| Spec score · Ai Databases | 8.9 (#3) | 7.3 (#29) |
| Spec score · Search Databases | 8.8 (#4) | 7.3 (#25) |
| API | Pinecone exposes REST and gRPC APIs for index administration and vector or document operations. | The documentation describes API operations to write, update, delete, and query documents. |
| Compliance | Pinecone states that it is SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant with a BAA available on request, and GDPR-ready. | turbopuffer undergoes SOC 2 Type 2 audits and provides a DPA for GDPR and CCPA processes. |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, United States | Canada |
| Product | Pinecone describes its product as a fully managed vector database built for AI workloads. | turbopuffer is an object-storage-native database for vector and full-text search. |
| Search | The database supports dense, sparse, and full-text indexes, metadata filters, and namespaces. | It supports vector search, text search, filters, regex search, and hybrid search. |
| Security | Pinecone states that it encrypts data at rest and in transit using AES-256 and supports API key roles and RBAC. | Customer data is encrypted in transit with TLS 1.2+ and at rest with AES-256, with customer-managed keys optionally available. |
| Support | The Starter plan includes community support via Discord; paid plans include free support, and Enterprise includes Pro support. | The pricing page lists Community Slack and Email support on Launch, and private Slack support on Scale and Enterprise. |
Plans
Pinecone
- Builder$20 a month
- Standard$50 a month
- Enterprise$500 a month
- StarterFree
- Bring your own cloud (BYOC)Priced 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.
turbopuffer
turbopuffer has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.