Pinecone vs Zilliz Cloud
Pinecone
pinecone.io
Zilliz Cloud
zilliz.comSide by side
| Figure | Pinecone | Zilliz Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 4 |
| Spec score · Vector Databases | 8.9 (#2) | 7.3 (#23) |
| Spec score · Ai Databases | 8.9 (#3) | 7.3 (#31) |
| Spec score · Search Databases | 8.8 (#4) | 7.3 (#26) |
| Spec score · Search & Vector Database Platforms | 8.8 (#4) | 7.3 (#16) |
| Founded | 2019 | 2017 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, United States | Redwood Shores, California, United States |
| Integrations | The partner ecosystem covers AI and machine-learning tools, search, cloud infrastructure and services integrations. | Documented integrations include Prometheus, Datadog, AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, and external model providers. |
| Product | Pinecone describes its product as a fully managed vector database built for AI workloads. | Zilliz Cloud is a fully managed Milvus service for deploying and scaling vector search applications. |
| Search | The database supports dense, sparse, and full-text indexes, metadata filters, and namespaces. | The service supports approximate nearest neighbor vector search, filtered search, hybrid search, and full-text search. |
| Security | Pinecone states that it encrypts data at rest and in transit using AES-256 and supports API key roles and RBAC. | Zilliz Cloud documents TLS 1.2 or higher in transit and AES-256 encryption at rest. |
| Support | The Starter plan includes community support via Discord; paid plans include free support, and Enterprise includes Pro support. | Users can contact Zilliz Support to request access to features in private preview. |
Plans
Pinecone
- Builder$20 a month
- Standard$50 a month
- Enterprise$500 a month
- StarterFree
- Bring your own cloud (BYOC)Priced on request
Zilliz Cloud
- Free clusterFree
- Business CriticalPriced on request
- DedicatedPriced on request
- ServerlessPriced 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.
Zilliz Cloud
Zilliz Cloud is a managed Milvus service for deploying and scaling vector search applications. It supports approximate nearest neighbor, filtered, hybrid, and full-text search. Teams can choose Free, Serverless, or Dedicated cluster deployments; Serverless clusters scale automatically to zero. During ingestion, the service can create vector embeddings from raw text using a configured embedding function.
Documented integrations include Prometheus, Datadog, AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, and external model providers. Migration sources include Pinecone, Qdrant, Elasticsearch, and PostgreSQL. The service supports sparse vectors, metadata filtering, up to 32768 dimensions, and a range of index types, including FLAT, HNSW, DISKANN, and AUTOINDEX. SDKs are listed for Python, Java, Go, Node.js, and C++. The Free cluster costs nothing and includes 5 GB storage, 2.5M vCUs/month, and up to 5 collections. Dedicated and Serverless pricing is pay as you go; storage charges apply to stored data and backup files even when a cluster is stopped.