Softwr

AI · head to head

Poolside vs Weaviate

Poolside logo

Poolside

AI

Open-weight foundation models built for agentic software engineering

From
$0.06/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Weaviate logo

Weaviate

Machine Learning

Open-source vector database

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Weaviate has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Poolside no self-serve public application; access is largely through enterprise sales or third-party model gateways; Weaviate the free tier caps at 100,000 objects, 1 GB of memory and a single collection
  • They diverge on capability: Poolside covers Laguna S 2.1, Weaviate covers Vector and keyword search.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Poolside and Weaviate actually diverge.

Attributes where Poolside and Weaviate differ
AttributePoolsideWeaviate
Starting price$0.06/monthFree
Pricing modelusage-basedfreemium
Free tierNoYes
Platformsweb, api, mac, windows, linuxLinux, Mac, Windows, Web
CategoryAIMachine Learning
Founded20232019

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Poolside

  • Laguna S 2.1
  • Laguna XS 2.1
  • Desktop and CLI tools
  • Open-weight models
  • Third-party gateway access

Only in Weaviate

  • Vector and keyword search
  • Built-in vectorizers
  • GraphQL API
  • Multi-tenancy
  • Hybrid search
  • OpenAI
  • Hugging Face
  • Cohere

What people use each for

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

Poolside

  • Enterprises deploying AI coding assistance across large developer organizationsnot Weaviate
  • Government and defense agencies needing on-premise or sovereign coding modelsnot Weaviate
  • Teams building custom coding agents on open-weight foundation modelsnot Weaviate
  • Organizations wanting on-device lightweight coding modelsnot Weaviate

Weaviate

  • Running a vector database for semantic and hybrid searchnot Poolside
  • Generating and storing embeddings alongside the objects they describenot Poolside

Where each one falls short

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

Poolside

  • No self-serve public application; access is largely through enterprise sales or third-party model gateways
  • Pricing for the flagship enterprise and government offering is not public and requires a sales conversation
  • Targets organizations with large (5,000+) developer headcounts, making it a poor fit for individuals or small teams
  • Documentation and product surface area are thin compared to consumer-facing coding assistants

Weaviate

  • The free tier caps at 100,000 objects, 1 GB of memory and a single collection
  • Billing is per million vector dimensions rather than per record, so wider embeddings cost proportionally more for the same object count
  • Premium is a prepaid contract starting at $400 a month rather than pay as you go
  • Storage rates do not fall consistently with tier, and Premium Dedicated is $0.1505 per GiB against $0.12 on the cheaper Flex plan
  • The Query Agent is metered separately, free to 1,000 requests a month and $30 a month plus overage beyond

Pricing, plan by plan

Poolside

$0.06/month
  • Laguna XS 2.1$undefined/month
    • $0.06 per 1M input tokens
    • $0.12 per 1M output tokens
    • Available via OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway
  • Laguna S 2.1$undefined/month
    • $0.10 per 1M input tokens
    • $0.20 per 1M output tokens
    • 1M token context window
  • Enterprise / Government$undefined/month
    • Custom contracts for large engineering organizations
    • Sales-quoted pricing
    • On-premise or dedicated deployment options

Weaviate

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • Full features
    • Self-hosted
  • ServerlessFree
    • Managed service
    • Auto-scaling

Which should you pick?

Choose Poolside if

  • You need laguna s 2.1.
  • You work on web, api, mac, windows, linux.
  • You also want laguna xs 2.1.
Poolside review

Choose Weaviate if

  • You need vector and keyword search.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Mac, Windows, Web.
  • You also want built-in vectorizers.
Weaviate review

Questions people ask

Is Poolside or Weaviate better?
Neither clearly leads. Poolside starts at $0.06/month and Weaviate at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Poolside or Weaviate?
Weaviate has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $0.06/month for Poolside and Free for Weaviate.
Does Poolside or Weaviate run on more platforms?
Poolside runs on web, api, mac, windows, linux. Weaviate runs on Linux, Mac, Windows, Web.
Can I use Weaviate for free?
Yes. Weaviate has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Poolside starts at $0.06/month.
What is Poolside best used for?
Poolside is most often used for enterprises deploying ai coding assistance across large developer organizations, government and defense agencies needing on-premise or sovereign coding models, teams building custom coding agents on open-weight foundation models, organizations wanting on-device lightweight coding models. Of those, enterprises deploying ai coding assistance across large developer organizations and government and defense agencies needing on-premise or sovereign coding models are not what Weaviate is typically brought in for.
What can Poolside do that Weaviate cannot?
Poolside covers Laguna S 2.1, Laguna XS 2.1, Desktop and CLI tools, Open-weight models. Weaviate covers Vector and keyword search, Built-in vectorizers, GraphQL API, Multi-tenancy.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Poolside: How is Poolside's Laguna model usage priced?

Laguna XS 2.1 is priced at $0.06 per 1M input tokens and $0.12 per 1M output tokens; Laguna S 2.1 is $0.10 per 1M input tokens and $0.20 per 1M output tokens.

Source
Weaviate: What pricing options does Weaviate offer?

Weaviate provides a free tier with usage-based pricing, plus enterprise options. Visit the pricing page for detailed information on plans.

Source
Poolside: Where can I access Poolside's models?

Laguna models are available through third-party gateways OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway, as well as via Poolside's own desktop and CLI tools.

Source
Weaviate: Does Weaviate offer customer support?

Yes, support is included with Weaviate's cloud offerings. Enterprise customers receive first-class support from their global team of experts.

Source
Poolside: Does Poolside offer enterprise or government pricing?

Yes, Poolside offers custom, sales-quoted contracts for large enterprises and government/defense customers, including on-premise or dedicated deployment options.

Source
Weaviate: Can I deploy Weaviate on my own infrastructure?

Yes. Weaviate is open source and deployment-agnostic. You can run it in your own cloud environment or use their managed cloud service.

Source
Poolside: How do I get started building with Poolside's models?

Poolside's documentation provides a quickstart guide for installing the `pool` CLI and running an agent task, alongside API documentation for custom integrations.

Source
Weaviate: What data security features does Weaviate provide?

Weaviate includes security & governance, RBAC, SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance, along with multi-tenancy and high availability for enterprise requirements.

Source
Weaviate: How do I get started with Weaviate?

Sign up for their cloud tier, create your first dataset, connect an LLM, and build your AI app. Documentation and quickstart guides are available for Python, Go, TypeScript, and JavaScript.

Source
Share

Related pages

More on Poolside

More on Weaviate

Keep looking

Other head to heads