Comparison

Milvus vs Turbopuffer

On the evidence we track, Turbopuffer leads this comparison with a composite score of 68/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
Milvus57
★Turbopuffer68
Score
vioscaleAI score
Milvus57 / 100medium · 57%
Turbopuffer68 / 100medium · 61%
Pricing
Free tier
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✗
Model
Turbopuffercommercial
Price level
Milvusfree
Turbopuffermid
Starting price
Milvus–
Turbopuffer$16
Transparent
Milvus✗
Turbopuffer✓
Integrations
Count
Milvus2
Turbopuffer–
Security
Disclosure policy
Milvus–
Turbopuffer✓
Gdpr
Milvus–
Turbopuffer✓
Hipaa
Milvus–
Turbopuffer✓
Scorecard
Milvus4.4
Turbopuffer–
Soc2
Milvus–
Turbopuffer✓
Reliability
Sla pct
Milvus–
Turbopuffer99.95
Status page
Milvus–
Turbopuffer✓
Adoption
Dependent repos
Milvus7
Turbopuffer–
Github stars
Milvus46,375
Turbopuffer–
Activity
Commits last 30d
Milvus100
Turbopuffer–
Release
Cadence days
Milvus7
Turbopuffer–
History
Milvus20 items
Turbopuffer–
License
Spdx
Turbopuffer–
Language
Primary
MilvusGo
Turbopuffer–
Market
Availability
Content
Faq
Milvus6 items
Turbopuffer6 items

Capabilities

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

Deployment
Deployment
MilvusSelf-hosted
TurbopufferManaged
Serverless / consumption pricing
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✓
Index
ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat)
MilvusHNSW, IVF, FLAT, SCANN, DiskANN, GPU_CAGRA
TurbopufferSPFresh (centroid-based)
Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean)
Milvuscosine, Euclidean, dot product
Turbopuffer-
Query
Metadata filtering
MilvusPre-filter
TurbopufferPre-filter
Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion)
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✓
Built-in BM25 / lexical
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✓
Storage
Quantization
MilvusProduct
Turbopuffer-
On-disk vs in-memory
MilvusDisk-backed
TurbopufferTiered
Scale
Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants)
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✓
Horizontal scale
MilvusSharded / distributed
TurbopufferSharded / distributed
Consistency
Consistency
MilvusEventual
TurbopufferTunable
Licensing
Licence class
MilvusPermissive OSS
TurbopufferProprietary
Classification
Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent
MilvusDedicated DBMS
TurbopufferDedicated DBMS

What each one is

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

Milvus

A high-performance, distributed vector database that enables fast similarity search across billions of high-dimensional vectors, supporting real-time updates, flexible metadata filtering, and hybrid search capabilities for AI and machine learning applications.

Independently observed

Turbopuffer

Leader

Vector and full-text search database built on object storage, offering 10x cheaper cost and extreme scalability for AI applications, semantic search, and recommendation systems.

Independently observed

Pricing

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

Milvus

Open sourceFree tier
as of verify ↗

Turbopuffer

Leader
from $16/moHybrid

From $16/month (Launch plan minimum) with consumption-based billing

  • Launch$16/month minimum with usage-based overage
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

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

Platforms
Web
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✓
Linux
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✗
CLI
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✓
Self-hosted
Milvus✓
Turbopuffer✗

Integrations

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

Milvus

8 total
  • OpenAI
  • Sentence Transformers
  • BGE-M3
  • SPLADE
  • Jina AI
  • BM25
  • PyMilvus
  • Jina
Independently observed

Turbopuffer

Leader

Not documented yet.

Still deciding?

Milvus or Turbopuffer: 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.