Skip to content
AI.info

Tools

Milvus vs Pinecone

Milvus or Pinecone? Their plans monthly and yearly, the capabilities their makers state, security and latest updates, side by side — read from the makers' own pages.

In short

  • Only Pinecone states: Choice of models, Self-hosted, API, Runs models for you, Builds agents and workflows, Search over your data

Milvus

Open-source vector database for similarity search, hybrid retrieval, metadata filtering, and AI application data.

Plans

Milvus (Open Source)

Free

  • 100% free open-source project under Apache License 2.0
  • Self-hosted deployments (Lite, Standalone, Distributed)
  • No usage limits from the software itself (hardware-dependent)

Prices checked 2026-09-25 by web search.

Latest updates

  • milvus-3.0.2 (v3.0.2)

    Milvus v3.0.2 improves filtered search, group-by, and index-building performance and adds external collection and Storage V2 support.

  • milvus-2.6.24 (v2.6.24)

    Milvus v2.6.24 reduces peak memory during segment loading and improves force-merge planning and filtered search.

  • pkg/v3.0.2 (v3.0.2)

    Snapshot restores targeting the same collection are now serialized.

About Milvus

Pinecone

Pinecone is a managed vector database for semantic search, recommendations, RAG, and AI agent retrieval.

Plans

Starter

Free

  • Pinecone Database On-Demand
  • Pinecone Inference
  • Pinecone Assistant
  • Dense, Sparse, and Full-Text Indexes
  • Console Metrics
  • Community Support via Discord

Builder

  • $20/month flat
  • Everything in Starter
  • Increased usage limits
  • Choose your cloud and region
  • Multiple projects and users
  • Prometheus and Datadog monitoring
  • Includes Free support

Standard

  • $50/month min. usage
  • Everything in Builder
  • Pay-as-you-go for Database On-Demand, Inference, and Assistant Usage
  • Choose your cloud and region
  • Dedicated Read Nodes (DRN)
  • Import from object storage
  • Backup and Restore

Enterprise

  • $500/month min. usage
  • Everything in Standard
  • 99.95% Uptime SLA
  • Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC)
  • Private Endpoints
  • Customer Managed Encryption Keys
  • Audit Logs

Bring your own cloud

Price on request

  • Pinecone in your cloud account
  • Zero-access operations – no SSH, VPN, or inbound access required
  • Outbound-only operations with an auditable trail
  • Pro support included

Prices checked 2026-09-24 on the maker’s page.

Capabilities

  • Choice of models — “All available models” source
  • Self-hosted — “Bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) runs Pinecone in your cloud account and VPC.” source
  • API — “Install the plugin in your agent, or call the API directly.” source
  • Runs models for you — “Pinecone Inference” source
  • Builds agents and workflows — “Build production-grade agent-based apps” source
  • Search over your data — “Search, upsert, and rerank from the same index.” source

Security

  • SOC 2 Type II — “Pinecone is SOC2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant (with BAA available upon request), and GDPR-ready.” source
  • SOC 2 — “Pinecone is SOC2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant (with BAA available upon request), and GDPR-ready.” source
  • HIPAA — “Pinecone is SOC2 Type II certified, HIPAA compliant (with BAA available upon request), and GDPR-ready.” source
  • Not trained on your data — “Your data remains isolated and protected, and is only used for servicing API calls.” source

Latest updates

About Pinecone