Pinecone vs Weaviate
Pinecone
pinecone.ioWeaviate
weaviate.ioSide by side
| Figure | Pinecone | Weaviate |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | $45/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 4 |
| Spec score · AI Search and Discovery Platforms Software | 8.7 (#2) | 8.0 (#12) |
| Spec score · Vector Databases | 8.9 (#2) | 8.0 (#10) |
| Spec score · Ai Databases | 8.9 (#3) | 8.0 (#16) |
| Spec score · Search Databases | 8.8 (#4) | 8.0 (#15) |
| Spec score · Database Software | 8.5 (#30) | 8.0 (#51) |
| Compliance | Pinecone states that it is SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant with a BAA available on request, and GDPR-ready. | The pricing page states that Weaviate Cloud is SOC 2 audited and that Enterprise Cloud on AWS is HIPAA compliant. |
| Founded | 2019 | 2019 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | The partner ecosystem covers AI and machine-learning tools, search, cloud infrastructure and services integrations. | The integration ecosystem lists cloud and model integrations including AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Hugging Face, and Ollama. |
| Product | Pinecone describes its product as a fully managed vector database built for AI workloads. | Weaviate is an open-source AI vector database for storing, indexing, and searching high-dimensional vectors, used as a foundation for search, RAG, and agents. |
| Search | The database supports dense, sparse, and full-text indexes, metadata filters, and namespaces. | The database supports hybrid search that combines vector and BM25 keyword search, along with semantic and keyword search. |
| Security | Pinecone states that it encrypts data at rest and in transit using AES-256 and supports API key roles and RBAC. | The security page states that Weaviate Cloud encrypts data in transit and at rest, supports role-based access controls, and provides automated daily backups. |
| Paid from | 20 | 45 |
| Support | The Starter plan includes community support via Discord; paid plans include free support, and Enterprise includes Pro support. | Free includes Basic Support; Flex lists Standard Support with next-business-day Sev 1 response, while Premium lists enterprise support as fast as 1-hour Sev 1. |
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.
Weaviate
Weaviate is an open-source AI vector database for storing, indexing and searching high-dimensional vectors, used as a foundation for search, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and agents. Its hybrid search combines vector retrieval with BM25 keyword search, alongside semantic and keyword search. Other listed capabilities include advanced filtering, vectorizer modules, configurable backups, native multi-tenancy, vector-index compression and tenant isolation. It can run as a hosted service or as a self-managed instance locally or with a cloud provider, with Docker and Kubernetes deployment options. Its integrations include AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Hugging Face and Ollama. Weaviate Cloud encrypts data in transit and at rest, supports role-based access controls and provides automated daily backups. The Free plan includes up to 100,000 objects, one collection and three tenants, but no backups or high-availability replication. Flex costs $45 a month; Premium costs $400 a month. Windows use is possible through containers such as Docker or WSL, but native Windows support is not offered. SDKs are listed for Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Go, Java and C#.