Machine Learning · head to head
Seldon vs Weaviate
Seldon
Machine Learning
Kubernetes model serving whose current version is licensed under the Business Source Licence
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Seldon seldon Core v2 is under the Business Source Licence rather than Apache 2.0, so production use requires a commercial agreement, and a team that evaluated it believing it was open source discovers the licence is the blocker exactly when the project is ready to ship.; Weaviate the free tier caps at 100,000 objects, 1 GB of memory and a single collection
- They diverge on capability: Seldon covers Kubernetes custom resources, 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 Seldon and Weaviate actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (freemium), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Machine Learning).
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 Seldon
- Kubernetes custom resources
- Inference graphs
- Traffic strategies
- Open Inference Protocol
- Alibi Explain
- Alibi Detect
- Kafka-backed pipelines in v2
- Commercial control plane
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.
Seldon
- Serving an ensemble or a multi-stage inference path as one versioned deployment rather than as a chain of separate servicesnot Weaviate
- Running genuine production experiments where a share of live traffic goes to a candidate model and the results are comparednot Weaviate
- Regulated environments needing explanations and drift monitoring attached to the served model rather than bolted on laternot Weaviate
- Organisations with an established Kubernetes platform team who want serving expressed as manifests under existing deployment controlsnot Weaviate
Weaviate
- Running a vector database for semantic and hybrid searchnot Seldon
- Generating and storing embeddings alongside the objects they describenot Seldon
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Seldon
- Seldon Core v2 is under the Business Source Licence rather than Apache 2.0, so production use requires a commercial agreement, and a team that evaluated it believing it was open source discovers the licence is the blocker exactly when the project is ready to ship.
- Core v1 remains Apache 2.0 but is in maintenance, so taking the free route means running software that receives no new development while the architecture it belongs to moves on without it.
- Version 2 is a different system rather than a newer release, with different custom resources, a scheduler component and a Kafka-based pipeline model, so migrating from v1 is a re-implementation of every deployment manifest rather than an upgrade.
- Kafka is a dependency for v2 pipelines, so an organisation that does not already operate it takes on a distributed log with its own storage, retention, rebalancing and failure modes purely in order to serve models.
- Everything assumes Kubernetes fluency and the failure modes are Kubernetes failure modes, custom resource version mismatches, an operator that will not reconcile, admission webhooks and resource limits terminating an inference pod mid-request, so it needs a platform engineer rather than a data scientist.
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
Seldon
Free- Seldon CoreFree
- Open source
- Kubernetes deployment
- Model serving
- Seldon DeployFree
- Enterprise features
- GUI
- Monitoring
Weaviate
Free- Open SourceFree
- Full features
- Self-hosted
- ServerlessFree
- Managed service
- Auto-scaling
Which should you pick?
Choose Seldon if
- You need kubernetes custom resources.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux.
- You also want inference graphs.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Seldon or Weaviate better?
- Neither clearly leads. Seldon starts at Free and Weaviate at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Seldon or Weaviate?
- Seldon starts at Free and Weaviate at Free.
- Does Seldon or Weaviate run on more platforms?
- Seldon runs on Linux. Weaviate runs on Linux, Mac, Windows, Web.
- Can I use Seldon for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Seldon best used for?
- Seldon is most often used for serving an ensemble or a multi-stage inference path as one versioned deployment rather than as a chain of separate services, running genuine production experiments where a share of live traffic goes to a candidate model and the results are compared, regulated environments needing explanations and drift monitoring attached to the served model rather than bolted on later, organisations with an established kubernetes platform team who want serving expressed as manifests under existing deployment controls. Of those, serving an ensemble or a multi-stage inference path as one versioned deployment rather than as a chain of separate services and running genuine production experiments where a share of live traffic goes to a candidate model and the results are compared are not what Weaviate is typically brought in for.
- What can Seldon do that Weaviate cannot?
- Seldon covers Kubernetes custom resources, Inference graphs, Traffic strategies, Open Inference Protocol. Weaviate covers Vector and keyword search, Built-in vectorizers, GraphQL API, Multi-tenancy.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Seldon: Is Seldon open source?
Partly, and this is the thing to check before you build on it. Core v1 is Apache 2.0 but in maintenance. Core v2 was moved to the Business Source Licence in 2024, which allows evaluation but not unlicensed production use. Verify the current licence of each component you intend to run, including MLServer and the Alibi libraries.
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.
SourceSeldon: What is the difference between v1 and v2?
Architecture, not just version number. v2 introduces a scheduler, a different set of custom resources and Kafka-backed pipelines. Manifests, mental model and operations all change, so treat a move as a project.
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.
SourceSeldon: Do I need Kubernetes?
Yes. It is a Kubernetes-native system and there is no meaningful deployment without a cluster and someone competent to run it.
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.
SourceSeldon: What is MLServer?
Seldon's Python inference server implementing the Open Inference Protocol, usable inside Seldon deployments or on its own. Check its current licence alongside Core's, since the company has moved projects onto the Business Source Licence.
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.
SourceSeldon: Do I have to run Kafka?
For v2 pipelines, yes. If you only need single models served, that dependency is a large amount of infrastructure for the benefit, and a simpler serving layer may be the better answer.
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.
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