vioscaleAI
Comparison

Faiss vs Zilliz Cloud

On the evidence we track, Zilliz Cloud leads this comparison with a composite score of 80/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Faiss full profile →Zilliz Cloud full profile →
Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
Faiss57
★Zilliz Cloud80
Score
vioscaleAI score
Faiss57 / 100low · 35%
Zilliz Cloud80 / 100medium · 74%
Pricing
Free tier
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud✓
Model
Faisscommercial
Zilliz Cloudfreemium
Price level
Faissfree
Zilliz Cloudhigh
Starting price
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud$197
Transparent
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud✓
Integrations
Count
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud1,000
Security
Certifications
Faiss–
Zilliz CloudSOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001
Gdpr
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud✓
Hipaa
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud✓
Iso27001
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud✓
Scorecard
Faiss6.2
Zilliz Cloud–
Soc2
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud✓
Trust center
Vulnerabilities
Reliability
Sla pct
Faiss–
Zilliz Cloud99.95
Status page
Faiss✓
Zilliz Cloud✓
Adoption
Dependent repos
Faiss5,592
Zilliz Cloud–
Github stars
Faiss41,146
Zilliz Cloud–
Activity
Commits last 30d
Faiss66
Zilliz Cloud–
Release
Cadence days
Faiss83
Zilliz Cloud–
History
Faiss20 items
Zilliz Cloud–
License
Spdx
FaissMIT
Zilliz Cloud–
Language
Primary
FaissC++
Zilliz Cloud–
Market
Availability
Faiss–
Zilliz CloudAvailable worldwide
Content
Faq
Faiss5 items
Zilliz Cloud6 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for vector databases. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deployment
Deployment
FaissSelf-hosted
Zilliz CloudManaged
Serverless / consumption pricing
Faiss✗
Zilliz Cloud✓
Index
ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat)
FaissHNSW, IVF, PQ, multi-index, NSG
Zilliz CloudHNSW, IVF, FLAT (brute-force), SCANN, DiskANN
Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean)
FaissEuclidean (L2), inner product, L1, Linf
Zilliz Cloudcosine, Euclidean
Query
Metadata filtering
Faiss-
Zilliz CloudPost-filter
Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion)
Faiss-
Zilliz Cloud✓
Built-in BM25 / lexical
Faiss-
Zilliz Cloud✓
Storage
Quantization
FaissProduct
Zilliz Cloud-
On-disk vs in-memory
FaissDisk-backed
Zilliz CloudTiered
Scale
Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants)
Faiss-
Zilliz Cloud✓
Horizontal scale
FaissSingle-node
Zilliz CloudSharded / distributed
Consistency
Consistency
Faiss-
Zilliz Cloud-
Licensing
Licence class
FaissPermissive OSS
Zilliz CloudProprietary
Classification
Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent
FaissExtension
Zilliz CloudDedicated DBMS

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Faiss

Faiss is a library for efficient similarity search and clustering of dense vectors. It contains algorithms that search in sets of vectors of any size, up to ones that possibly do not fit in RAM.

Independently observed

Zilliz Cloud

Leader

Zilliz Cloud is a managed cloud service built on the open-source Milvus vector database. It handles storage, indexing, and similarity search at scale for unstructured data, supporting vector search, full-text search, and hybrid retrieval for AI and machine learning workloads.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Faiss

Open source
as of verify ↗

Zilliz Cloud

Leader
from $197/moHybridFree tier30-day trial

Free tier with 5 GB storage. Serverless pricing from $0/month pay-per-query. Dedicated clusters from $197/month. Annual commitments available.

  • FreeFree
    • Community support via Slack
    • Vector search
    • Filtered search
    • Range search
  • ServerlessPay-per-query pricing, system-managed auto-scaling
    • Fully managed vector databases
    • Backup and restore
    • Basic monitoring
    • Built-in encryption for data in transit and at rest
    • Vector search
    • +2 more
  • DedicatedFrom $197/month base, plus $0.126/GB storage, dedicated infrastructure
    • 99.95% uptime SLA
    • SSO (SAML 2.0)
    • Granular RBAC
    • Multi-replica and elastic scaling
    • Global cluster with disaster recovery
    • +9 more
  • BYOCContact sales
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Faiss✗
Zilliz Cloud✓
macOS
Faiss✓
Zilliz Cloud✗
Windows
Faiss✓
Zilliz Cloud✗
Linux
Faiss✓
Zilliz Cloud✗
CLI
Faiss✗
Zilliz Cloud✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Faiss✗
Zilliz Cloud✓
Self-hosted
Faiss✓
Zilliz Cloud✗

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

Faiss

Not documented yet.

Zilliz Cloud

Leader
32 total
  • AWS
  • Google Cloud
  • Azure
  • LangChain
  • Fivetran
  • Google Ads
  • Google Analytics 4
  • Google Search Console
  • Google Sheets
  • Hubspot
  • LinkedIn Ad Analytics
  • Marketo
  • Microsoft Advertising
  • NetSuite SuiteAnalytics
  • Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications
  • Apache SeaTunnel
  • PostgreSQL/Pgvector
  • PyMilvus
  • Claude
  • Prometheus
  • HoneyHive
  • Cohere
  • Haystack
  • FiftyOne
  • +8 more
Independently observed
Still deciding?

Faiss or Zilliz Cloud: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.