Zillizvs
Pinecone
Pinecone: Managed vector database with simpler pricing model and API
Zilliz
Managed vector database and vector lakebase for AI applications
As of 29 August 2026, Zilliz is free to use. Zilliz provides Zilliz Cloud, a fully managed vector database service built on the open-source Milvus engine. Softwr lists it under Databases. Zilliz is launched in 2017, available on Web, Self-hosted.
Overview
What Zilliz does
Zilliz is the company behind Milvus, the world's most widely-adopted open-source vector database. Zilliz Cloud is a fully managed service that handles the operational complexity of running vector search infrastructure, enabling organizations to easily manage, search, and retain vectors at any scale without managing compute. Milvus, the underlying technology, is distributed under the Apache License 2.0 and part of the LF AI & Data Foundation, supporting billions of vectors through its distributed architecture that separates storage and compute. The platform handles high-dimensional vector embeddings with advanced indexing for efficient similarity search, making it ideal for building RAG applications, semantic search, multimodal search, and recommendation systems. Zilliz Cloud offers a fully managed alternative to self-hosting while maintaining compatibility with the open-source Milvus project.
What people use it for
- Build retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems
- Implement semantic search over documents
- Create multimodal search with text and images
- Power recommendation engines with vector similarity
- Enable similarity search on user embeddings
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Zilliz.
- Pricing structure not publicly disclosed, requires sales contact
- Operational complexity for self-hosted Milvus deployments
- Learning curve for those unfamiliar with vector databases
- Limited built-in analytics compared to some alternatives
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Zilliz
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- ZillizvsWeaviate
Weaviate: Open-source vector database with hybrid search capabilities
- ZillizvsQdrant
Qdrant: Vector database optimized for semantic search and recommendations
Capabilities
Features
Vector indexing
Efficient indexing for billion-scale vectors
Distributed architecture
Separated storage and compute for scaling
SQL interface
Query vectors using SQL with new syntax
Tensor support
Handle high-dimensional tensor operations
Real-time search
Low-latency similarity search operations
Cloud-native
Serverless vector database with managed scaling
Open-source compatible
Drop-in replacement for self-hosted Milvus
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
What is the difference between Milvus and Zilliz Cloud?
Milvus is the open-source vector database that you can self-host. Zilliz Cloud is the fully managed service built on Milvus that removes operational overhead and handles scaling automatically.
SourceHow many vectors can Zilliz handle?
Milvus and Zilliz Cloud can store and search billions of vectors through their distributed architecture that separates storage and compute layers.
SourceIs Milvus open-source?
Yes, Milvus is open-source under the Apache License 2.0 and is part of the LF AI & Data Foundation.
SourceWhat pricing does Zilliz Cloud offer?
Zilliz Cloud pricing is not publicly listed and requires contacting their team to discuss your specific scale and use case requirements.
SourceBehind it
Who makes Zilliz
- Company
- Zilliz
- Based in
- Redwood City, CA
- Founders
- Charles Xie
Timeline
Zilliz over time
- Milestone2023-11-01
Milvus 3.0 released with lake-native data access
Source
Keep looking
Where to go from Zilliz
- Zilliz alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Zilliz pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Zilliz badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Databases softwareThe full category
- Best Databases softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Databases software for
Compare Zilliz with
- Qdrant
- Vespa
- Marqo
- DataStax
- Elasticsearch
- Meilisearch
- Typesense
- Materialize
- OpenSearch
- Apache Solr
- Readyset
- SurrealDB
- StarRocks
- Teradata
- TIBCO Enterprise Message Service
- Timeplus
- turbopuffer
- SurrealDB
Other Databases software
High-performance vector database for similarity search and embedding-based retrieval
Free plan13 researched notesDistributed AI search platform for retrieval, ranking, and inference
Free plan11 researched notesThe heart of the Elastic Stack for search and analytics
Free, then $16.4/mo11 researched notesOpen-source typo-tolerant search engine as an Algolia alternative
Open source9 researched notesLive context layer for AI agents using real-time SQL transformations
Free, then $1.5/compute-credit10 researched notesOpen-source search and analytics suite forked from Elasticsearch
Open source9 researched notesDatabase caching and optimization that reduces infrastructure costs 30-70%
Free plan10 researched notesMulti-model database combining documents, graphs, vectors and time-series
Free plan9 researched notesApache 2.0 MPP analytical database built for joins on open table formats
Open source12 researched notesLong-established enterprise MPP data warehouse, rebranded in 2026 as the Autonomous Knowledge Platform, sold for cloud, on-premises and hybrid.
Pricing on request14 researched notesJMS message broker underpinning bank and telecom estates, now maintained rather than expanded
Pricing on request12 researched notesStreaming SQL engine built on ClickHouse internals, shipping as one small binary
Free, then $199/mo12 researched notesClosed-source vector and full-text search service built directly on object storage, with cold queries measured in seconds rather than milliseconds.
From $16/mo14 researched notesMulti-model database combining documents, graphs, vectors and time-series
Free plan9 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Zilliz, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Zilliz
Zilliz alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Zilliz pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Zilliz
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Zilliz badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best Databases software alternatives
Industrial process historian with published per-tag pricing and no client licence fees
Per tag band per year
NetApp-owned managed service for Cassandra, Kafka, OpenSearch, PostgreSQL and Cadence with a bring-your-own-cloud model
quote
Erlang MQTT broker for large IoT fleets, relicensed to BSL with production free use limited to one node
Per month by connection and session volume
Attribute-based access control and masking applied inside Snowflake, Databricks and BigQuery
quote
MPP analytical database with a MySQL wire protocol and sub-second aggregation on wide tables
Open source, no licence fee
Streaming database that maintains incremental materialised views in SQL instead of Flink jobs
Per RisingWave Unit hour
Centralised data access governance from the creators of Apache Ranger, now rebranding as Trust3 AI
quote
The Meta-lineage distributed SQL query engine, distinct from the Trino fork
Open source, no licence fee