Comparison

Milvus vs Zilliz Cloud

On the evidence we track, Zilliz Cloud leads this comparison with a composite score of 84/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
Attribute comparison across 2 tools
Attribute68Milvus84Zilliz CloudLeader
Vioscale score68 / 100low · 25%84 / 100medium · 53%
Commits last 30d100-
Github stars45,440-
Options{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}
LongMilvus is an open-source vector database built for GenAI applications, enabling high-speed similarity search and scaling to tens of billions of vectors with minimal performance loss.Fully managed Vector Lakebase services designed for high reliability, performance, and cost efficiency at scale. Purpose-built for real-time serving, iterative discovery, and batch analytics at billion-scale.
Capabilities{"deployment":"self_hosted","serverless":true,"storage_tier":"disk_backed","hybrid_search":true,"licence_class":"permissive_oss","product_class":"dedicated_dbms","horizontal_scale":"sharded_distributed"}{"deployment":"managed","serverless":true,"storage_tier":"tiered","hybrid_search":true,"licence_class":"proprietary","multi_tenancy":true,"product_class":"dedicated_dbms","full_text_bm25":true,"horizontal_scale":"sharded_distributed"}
PrimaryGo-
SpdxApache-2.0-
Support{"mac":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}{"cli":true,"web":true}
Pricing{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open-source with optional managed Zilliz Cloud (serverless and dedicated cluster; free trial available)","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://milvus.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-05T13:26:39.808Z"}{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free","features":["Shared managed environment","Basic API access"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Starting point for learning and personal projects","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"vCUs":"2.5M per month","storage":"5 GB","collections":"5"}},{"free":false,"name":"Standard","summary":"From $0/mo (Serverless) or $126/GB/mo (Dedicated)","features":["Fully managed vector databases with core APIs","Backup and restore","Basic monitoring","Encryption in transit and at rest"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD","description":"Serverless starting price"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":126,"currency":"USD","description":"Dedicated pricing"}],"description":"Fully managed essentials for non-critical workloads. Best for prototypes and testing environments","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"From $197/mo (Dedicated)","features":["99.95% uptime SLA","Audit logs","SSO (SAML 2.0)","Granular RBAC","Multi-replica and elastic scaling","Private endpoint and VPC peering","On-demand Enterprise support"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":197,"period":"month","currency":"USD","description":"Dedicated minimum"}],"description":"Enterprise-grade reliability and controls. Best for production applications","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Business Critical","summary":"Custom pricing","features":["Global cluster with high-level availability and disaster recovery","CMEK and full-path in-transit encryption (edge TLS + internal)","HIPAA-eligible with enhanced data privacy","Priority support and rapid incident response"],"description":"Regulated-ready with maximum resilience. Best for healthcare, finance, and highly regulated mission-critical systems","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"On-demand Compute"},{"name":"BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud)"}],"summary":"Free tier + pay-as-you-go serverless/dedicated. Enterprise and Business Critical plans available.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://zilliz.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-03T13:12:36.259Z","freeTrialDays":30,"startingPrice":{"amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}
Free tierYesYes
Modelopen_sourcefreemium
Price levelfreefree
Starting gbp-0
TransparentYesYes
Cadence days5-
Sla pct-99.95
Status page-Yes
Gdpr-Yes
Hipaa-Yes
Iso27001-Yes
Soc2-Yes

Capabilities

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

Capability comparison for Vector Databases
CapabilityMilvusZilliz Cloud
Deployment
DeploymentSelf-hostedManaged
Serverless / consumption pricing
Index
ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat)--
Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean)--
Query
Metadata filtering--
Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion)
Built-in BM25 / lexical-
Storage
Quantization--
On-disk vs in-memoryDisk-backedTiered
Scale
Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants)-
Horizontal scaleSharded / distributedSharded / distributed
Consistency
Consistency--
Licensing
Licence classPermissive OSSProprietary
Classification
Purpose-built vs feature-of-parentDedicated DBMSDedicated DBMS

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