Weaviate vs Milvus

Weaviate8.7Visit Milvus8.6Visit

Higher score Weaviate #3 in Ai Databases 8.7/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 2 of 3 features Visit Weaviate

vs

Milvus #4 in Ai Databases 8.6/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 2 of 3 features Visit Milvus

• Weaviate fits best

  Teams needing cloud or self-hosted vector search

• Milvus fits best

  Developers wanting open-source vector search

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Side by side

Feature	Weaviate 8.7/10 Visit ↗	Milvus 8.6/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	8.7	8.6
Ranking	#3 in Ai Databases	#4 in Ai Databases
Best for	Teams needing cloud or self-hosted vector search	Developers wanting open-source vector search
Pricing model	Free plan + paid	Free
Starting price	$45/mo	Free plan
Free plan	✓	✓
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud, Self-hosted	Cloud, Self-hosted
Support	Email, Phone, Community, Docs · 24/7	Community, Docs
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Weaviate 2/3 · Milvus 2/3
Metadata filtering	✓	✓
Hybrid search	✓	✓
Managed backups	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Specs
Deployment	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Index types	HNSW, Flat, Dynamic, HFresh	HNSW, IVF, FLAT, DiskANN, SCANN
Max vector dimensions	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Hybrid vector and BM25 keyword search with metadata filtering Cloud and self-hosted deployment with multiple index types REST, GraphQL, gRPC APIs and five official client-language options	Supports hybrid dense-sparse search, BM25, and metadata filtering Offers HNSW, IVF, FLAT, DiskANN, and SCANN index types Runs locally, as a standalone server, or on distributed Kubernetes
Cons	Free plan is limited to 100,000 objects and 1 GB memory Flex starts at $45 per month with a shared cloud cluster Premium requires a $400 monthly prepaid contract	Self-hosted deployment requires operating the database infrastructure Support channels listed are community and documentation Managed cloud is a separate Zilliz Cloud service
Our verdict	Weaviate is an open-source vector database for developers building semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation, recommendations, and other AI applications. It stores objects with vector embeddings and supports vector similarity,… Read the review →	Milvus is an open-source vector database for developers and organizations building semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation, recommendations, image search, and other AI applications. It stores, indexes, and searches dense, sparse,… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Weaviate — where it wins

  • Hybrid vector and BM25 keyword search with metadata filtering
  • Cloud and self-hosted deployment with multiple index types
  • REST, GraphQL, gRPC APIs and five official client-language options

  Where it doesn't

  • Free plan is limited to 100,000 objects and 1 GB memory
  • Flex starts at $45 per month with a shared cloud cluster
  • Premium requires a $400 monthly prepaid contract

• Milvus — where it wins

  • Supports hybrid dense-sparse search, BM25, and metadata filtering
  • Offers HNSW, IVF, FLAT, DiskANN, and SCANN index types
  • Runs locally, as a standalone server, or on distributed Kubernetes

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-hosted deployment requires operating the database infrastructure
  • Support channels listed are community and documentation
  • Managed cloud is a separate Zilliz Cloud service

• Weaviate8.7/10 · Free plan

  A flexible vector database with hybrid search, multiple APIs, and cloud or self-hosted deployment.

  Visit WeaviateFull verdict →
• Milvus8.6/10 · Free plan

  A flexible vector search foundation for teams that want open-source or self-hosted deployment.

  Visit MilvusFull verdict →