Milvus vs Zilliz Cloud

Milvus8.8Visit Zilliz Cloud8.6Visit

Higher score Milvus #6 in Vector Databases 8.8/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 3 of 3 features Visit Milvus

vs

Zilliz Cloud #8 in Vector Databases 8.6/10 Free plan · 30-day trial Free planFree trial✓ 3 of 3 features Visit Zilliz Cloud

• Milvus fits best

  Open-source teams needing maximum vector depth

• Zilliz Cloud fits best

  Managed Milvus-compatible cloud deployments

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Side by side

Feature	Milvus 8.8/10 Visit ↗	Zilliz Cloud 8.6/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	8.8	8.6
Ranking	#6 in Vector Databases	#8 in Vector Databases
Best for	Open-source teams needing maximum vector depth	Managed Milvus-compatible cloud deployments
Pricing model	Free	Free plan + paid
Starting price	Free plan	—
Free plan	✓	✓
Free trial	—	30 days
Deployment	Cloud, Self-hosted	Cloud
Support	Community, Docs	Docs
Integrations	8 integrations	10 integrations
Built for	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Milvus 3/3 · Zilliz Cloud 3/3
Hybrid search	✓	✓
Metadata filtering	✓	✓
Sparse vectors	✓	✓
Specs
Deployment	Both	Cloud
Maximum dimensions	Not checked yet	32768 dimensions
Index types	HNSW, IVF, FLAT, DiskANN, SCANN	FLAT, IVF_FLAT, IVF_SQ8, IVF_PQ, HNSW, DISKANN, AUTOINDEX, SCANN, HNSW_SQ, HNSW_PQ, HNSW_PRQ, IVF_RABITQ, SPARSE_INVERTED_INDEX, SPARSE_WAND
SDK languages	Python, Go, Java, Node.js, C++	Python, Java, Go, Node.js, C++
Our review
Pros	Supports dense, sparse, binary, hybrid, filtered, and reranked search Runs locally, with Docker, or across distributed Kubernetes deployments Offers broad index coverage and SDKs for Python, Go, Java, Node.js, and C++	Supports dense, sparse, binary, hybrid, and full-text search Includes filtering, reranking, backups, restore, and migration tools Offers SaaS and BYOC deployment with major cloud storage integrations
Cons	Self-hosted deployment places infrastructure and operations work on your team Its broad index catalog can make architecture decisions more involved Managed cloud is provided separately through Zilliz Cloud	Paid tiers use usage-based pricing rather than fixed subscription rates Cloud deployment may not suit teams seeking a self-hosted product Its broad feature set may exceed the needs of simple vector search projects
Our verdict	Milvus is an open-source vector database for GenAI applications and similarity search. It suits teams building retrieval-augmented generation, image search, multimodal search, and large-scale production systems that need more than a single… Read the review →	Zilliz Cloud is a fully managed Milvus service for building and operating vector search applications. It is aimed at teams developing semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation, recommendations, and multimodal retrieval workloads… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Milvus — where it wins

  • Supports dense, sparse, binary, hybrid, filtered, and reranked search
  • Runs locally, with Docker, or across distributed Kubernetes deployments
  • Offers broad index coverage and SDKs for Python, Go, Java, Node.js, and C++

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-hosted deployment places infrastructure and operations work on your team
  • Its broad index catalog can make architecture decisions more involved
  • Managed cloud is provided separately through Zilliz Cloud

• Zilliz Cloud — where it wins

  • Supports dense, sparse, binary, hybrid, and full-text search
  • Includes filtering, reranking, backups, restore, and migration tools
  • Offers SaaS and BYOC deployment with major cloud storage integrations

  Where it doesn't

  • Paid tiers use usage-based pricing rather than fixed subscription rates
  • Cloud deployment may not suit teams seeking a self-hosted product
  • Its broad feature set may exceed the needs of simple vector search projects

• Milvus8.8/10 · Free plan

  A deep, flexible open-source choice for demanding vector and hybrid search workloads.

  Visit MilvusFull verdict →
• Zilliz Cloud8.6/10 · Free plan · 30-day trial

  A capable managed vector database for teams building AI search applications.

  Visit Zilliz CloudFull verdict →