Milvus is a cloud-native vector database built for massive scale, with multiple index types and a distributed architecture for billions of vectors.
| Category | Vector database |
| Type | Vector database |
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| Runs locally | Self-hosted |
| Built with | Go / C++ |
| Skill level | Advanced |
| Best for | teams needing billion-scale vector search |
Other open-source vector database tools worth comparing:
QdrantFast Rust-based vector search
WeaviateVector DB with built-in modules
ChromaThe simplest embedding DB for prototyping
pgvectorVector search inside PostgreSQL
LanceDBServerless vector DB for AI
FAISSThe reference library for similarity search
VespaBig-scale hybrid search and ranking platform
pgvectorscaleMake pgvector fast at scale
MarqoVector search with embedding built in
USearchTiny, extremely fast vector indexMilvus is free and open-source (Apache-2.0 license), so you can use, self-host and modify it at no cost.
Yes. Milvus is designed to run on your own machine or server, keeping your data private.
Popular open-source alternatives include Qdrant, Weaviate, Chroma. See the comparisons above to choose.
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