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Developer Tools · head to head

Helm vs turbopuffer

H

Helm

Developer Tools

The package manager for Kubernetes

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit HelmFull review
turbopuffer logo

turbopuffer

Databases

Closed-source vector and full-text search service built directly on object storage, with cold queries measured in seconds rather than milliseconds.

From
$16/month
Free plan
No
Visit turbopufferFull review

The short version

  • Helm is a Kubernetes package manager, licensed Apache 2.
  • Helm is free; turbopuffer starts at $16/mo.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Helm and turbopuffer actually diverge.

Attributes where Helm and turbopuffer differ
AttributeHelmturbopuffer
Starting priceFree$16/month
Pricing modelOpen-sourceSubscription
Free tierYesNo
CategoryDeveloper ToolsDatabases

Identical on both: platforms (Web).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Helm

Nothing recorded that turbopuffer does not also cover.

Only in turbopuffer

  • Object storage architecture
  • Namespaces
  • Vector search
  • Full-text search
  • Attribute filtering
  • Documented limits
  • Configurable consistency
  • Durable writes

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Helm

  • Kubernetes package manager and deployment toolnot turbopuffer

turbopuffer

  • A product with one search index per customer and thousands of customers, most of whose data is idle on any given daynot Helm
  • Very large corpora where holding every vector in memory is the dominant cost and occasional cold-query latency is acceptablenot Helm
  • Hybrid retrieval combining BM25 and vector search where running and synchronising two separate systems is the problem being solvednot Helm
  • Retrieval for agent and assistant products where indexes are created and destroyed frequently and per-index overhead must be near zeronot Helm

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Helm

  • Contributors must sign commits under the Developer Certificate of Origin to have them accepted, per helm.sh, a process requirement not all Kubernetes tools impose

turbopuffer

  • A cold namespace pays object storage latency on the first query, with a documented p90 around 1,214 ms on a million documents, so any interactive search box needs the data kept warm or the user waits about a second
  • Queries are eventually consistent by default, and after roughly 128 MiB of outstanding writes new data is invisible until indexed, which the vendor puts at tens of seconds for small namespaces and tens of minutes for large ones, so a bulk re-index is not immediately queryable
  • It is closed source with no community edition, so single-tenant or bring-your-own-cloud deployment is a commercial negotiation rather than a deployment choice, and there is no path to running it yourself if the relationship ends
  • Per-namespace ceilings, roughly 10,000 writes per second, 32 MB/s and 500 million documents per shard, mean a single enormous index has to be sharded across namespaces by your application rather than by the service
  • It is a search engine, not a database: there are no joins, no cross-document transactions and no SQL, so it sits beside a primary datastore and keeping the two in step is work that belongs to you

Pricing, plan by plan

Helm

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Helm review.

turbopuffer

$16/month
  • Launch$16/mo
    • All database features
    • Multi-tenancy deployment
    • SOC2 & GDPR-ready DPA
  • Scale$256/mo
    • Everything in Launch
    • HIPAA-ready BAA
    • Single Sign-On (SSO)
  • Enterprise$4,096/mo
    • Everything in Scale
    • Single-tenancy & BYOC deployment options
    • Private networking

Which should you pick?

Choose Helm if

  • You want to start without paying.
Helm review

Choose turbopuffer if

  • You need object storage architecture.
  • You also want namespaces.
turbopuffer review

Questions people ask

Is Helm or turbopuffer better?
Neither clearly leads. Helm starts at Free and turbopuffer at $16/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Helm or turbopuffer?
Helm has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Helm and $16/month for turbopuffer.
Does Helm or turbopuffer run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Helm for free?
Yes. Helm has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. turbopuffer starts at $16/month.
What is Helm best used for?
Helm is most often used for kubernetes package manager and deployment tool. Of those, kubernetes package manager and deployment tool is not what turbopuffer is typically brought in for.
What can Helm do that turbopuffer cannot?
turbopuffer covers Object storage architecture, Namespaces, Vector search, Full-text search.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Helm: How much does Helm cost?

Helm is free and open-source. It is a graduated project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) with no commercial pricing model.

Source
turbopuffer: Can I self-host turbopuffer?

There is no open source or community edition. Single-tenant and bring-your-own-cloud deployments exist as commercial arrangements, but there is no way to run it independently of the vendor.

turbopuffer: How fast is it really?

Warm queries perform comparably to in-memory search engines. Cold queries, where data is not cached, have a documented p90 around 1,214 ms on a million documents. Write p90 is around 248 ms for a 512 KB upsert because writes go straight to object storage.

turbopuffer: Is it consistent?

Eventually consistent by default, with the vendor reporting that over 99.8% of queries return consistent data. Strong consistency can be requested per query at a latency cost. Large write bursts have a longer visibility delay while indexing catches up.

turbopuffer: What is it best at?

Large numbers of namespaces where most are idle. The architecture makes cold data cheap to keep, which is exactly the shape of a multi-tenant product with a long tail of inactive customers.

turbopuffer: What are the hard limits?

Up to 128 billion documents and 256 TB per namespace, 500 million documents per shard, 64 MiB per document, 10,752 dense vector dimensions, roughly 10,000 writes per second per namespace and a maximum result set of 10,000.

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