# Faiss vs Zilliz Cloud

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Zilliz Cloud

| Attribute | Faiss | Zilliz Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 62 (36% (low)) | 79.8 (73% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 47 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 5,592 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 40,809 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | 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. | 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. |
| features.capabilities | `{"ann_index":"HNSW, IVF, PQ, multi-index, NSG","deployment":"self_hosted","serverless":false,"quantization":"product","storage_tier":"disk_backed","licence_class":"permissive_oss","product_class":"extension","distance_metrics":"Euclidean (L2), inner product, L1, Linf","horizontal_scale":"single_node"}` | `{"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","metadata_filtering":"post_filter"}` |
| integrations.count | - | 4 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"Google Cloud"},{"name":"Azure"},{"name":"LangChain"}]` |
| language.primary | C++ | - |
| license.spdx | MIT | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US","GB","CN","SG","DE"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"mac":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://faiss.ai","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T20:46:34.341Z"}` | `{"type":"subscription","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","features":["Vector search","Up to 5 collections"],"contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"vCUs":"2.5M/month","storage":"5 GB","collections":"5"}},{"free":false,"name":"Standard","summary":"From $0/month (Serverless) or from $126/GB/month (Dedicated)","features":["Fully managed vector databases with core APIs","Backup and restore","Basic monitoring","Data encryption in transit and at rest"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":126,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"From $197/month (Dedicated)","features":["99.95% uptime SLA","Audit logs","SSO (SAML 2.0)","Granular RBAC","Multi-replica and elastic scaling","Private endpoint and VPC peering"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":197,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Business Critical","features":["Global cluster with high-level availability","Disaster recovery","CMEK and full-path in-transit encryption","HIPAA-eligible","Rapid incident response"],"contactSales":true},{"free":false,"name":"BYOC","features":["Deploy on your infrastructure of choice","High-level control and security","Same features and experience as SaaS Dedicated clusters"],"contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"On-demand Compute"}],"summary":"Free tier available. Paid plans start from $197/month (Enterprise Dedicated) or usage-based pricing ($126/GB for Standard Dedicated).","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://zilliz.com/pricing/unlimited-calculator","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T20:46:56.922Z","freeTrialDays":30,"startingPrice":{"amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | - | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | - | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 83 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.15.0","date":"2026-08-03T17:10:58Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.15.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.14.3","date":"2026-06-13T04:03:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.14.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.14.2","date":"2026-05-22T20:05:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.14.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.14.1","date":"2026-03-06T17:49:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.14.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.14.0","date":"2026-03-03T03:19:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.14.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.13.2","date":"2025-12-19T23:41:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.13.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.13.1","date":"2025-12-03T00:02:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.13.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.13.0","date":"2025-11-12T17:18:44Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.13.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.12.0","date":"2025-08-12T16:46:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.12.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.11.0","date":"2025-04-25T14:13:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.11.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.10.0","date":"2025-01-31T23:29:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.10.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.9.0","date":"2024-10-04T21:33:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.8.0","date":"2024-03-01T01:04:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.7.4","date":"2023-04-20T13:45:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.7.3","date":"2022-11-30T15:24:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.7.2","date":"2022-01-10T12:19:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.7.1","date":"2021-05-28T09:08:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.7.0","date":"2021-02-13T14:11:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.6.5","date":"2020-12-21T05:24:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.6.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/releases/tag/v1.6.4","date":"2020-10-22T13:28:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.6.4"}]` | - |
| reliability.sla_pct | - | 99.95 |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.hipaa | - | yes |
| security.iso27001 | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 6.1 | - |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=faiss-cpu&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (Vector Databases)

| Capability | Faiss | Zilliz Cloud |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Self-hosted | Managed |
| Serverless / consumption pricing | ✗ | ✓ |
| **Index** |  |  |
| ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat) | HNSW, IVF, PQ, multi-index, NSG | - |
| Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean) | Euclidean (L2), inner product, L1, Linf | - |
| **Query** |  |  |
| Metadata filtering | - | Post-filter |
| Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion) | - | ✓ |
| Built-in BM25 / lexical | - | ✓ |
| **Storage** |  |  |
| Quantization | Product | - |
| On-disk vs in-memory | Disk-backed | Tiered |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants) | - | ✓ |
| Horizontal scale | Single-node | Sharded / distributed |
| **Consistency** |  |  |
| Consistency | - | - |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Permissive OSS | Proprietary |
| **Classification** |  |  |
| Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent | Extension | Dedicated DBMS |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T14:44:41.231Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*