Milvus
An open-source vector database optimized for large-scale similarity search in GenAI applications
- Also known as
- milvus
What is 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.
Milvus pricing
We don't have Milvus's full plan breakdown yet (its pricing page resisted automated reading). Here's what we could confirm. Always check live pricing for exact numbers.
Open-source and available for free. Managed hosting available through Zilliz Cloud.
What Milvus does
The capabilities that matter for vector databases, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- Deployment
- Self-hosted
- Serverless / consumption pricing
- ✓
- ANN index (HNSW / IVF / DiskANN / ScaNN / flat)
- HNSW, IVF, FLAT, SCANN, DiskANN, GPU_CAGRA
- Distance metrics (cosine / dot / Euclidean)
- cosine, Euclidean, dot product
- Metadata filtering
- Pre-filter
- Hybrid search (dense + sparse fusion)
- ✓
- Built-in BM25 / lexical
- ✓
- Quantization
- Product
- On-disk vs in-memory
- Disk-backed
- Multi-tenancy (namespaces / collections / tenants)
- ✓
- Horizontal scale
- Sharded / distributed
- Consistency
- Eventual
- Licence class
- Permissive OSS
- Purpose-built vs feature-of-parent
- Dedicated DBMS
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- CLI
- Linux
- Cloud / SaaS
- Self-hosted
Integrations (8)
Independently observed- Jina
- OpenAI
- Sentence Transformers
- BGE-M3
- SPLADE
- Jina AI
- BM25
- PyMilvus
Security & compliance
Known vulnerabilities: 0 (0 in the last 12 months) sourcea count reflects scale & disclosure, not quality
Milvus FAQ
Common questions about Milvus, answered from independent, dated evidence.
What is Milvus?
A distributed database system for storing and searching high-dimensional vectors at scale. Supports multiple deployment models from local notebooks to cloud-managed services, with capabilities for hybrid search combining dense and sparse embeddings. It is indexed under Vector Databases.
Source: https://milvus.io
Is Milvus free?
Milvus offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.
Source: https://milvus.io
What platforms does Milvus support?
Milvus supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.
Source: https://milvus.io
Can Milvus be self-hosted?
Yes. Milvus can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.
Source: https://milvus.io
What does Milvus integrate with?
We have confirmed 7 integrations for Milvus, including OpenAI, Sentence Transformers, BGE-M3, SPLADE, Jina AI, BM25 and PyMilvus. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.
Source: https://milvus.io
Is Milvus open source?
Yes. Milvus is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.
Milvus alternatives
Other vector databases we track, ranked by the same independent score.
- Zilliz CloudA fully managed cloud service for storing, indexing, and searching high-dimensional vector data at scalemedium · 74%
- PineconeManaged vector database infrastructure for machine learning applicationshigh · 75%
- TurbopufferA database combining vector similarity and text search built on cloud storagemedium · 61%
- EpsillaCreate AI agents without needing engineering resourceslow · 30%
- Chromamedium · 70%
- WeaviateA vector database platform designed for building AI-powered semantic search applicationshigh · 75%
Compare Milvus
Side by side against other vector databases, attribute by attribute, with a source on every value.
The vioscaleAI score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for Milvus, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Development activity | 63 | 0.14 | 8.5 | ✓ |
| Release cadence | 94 | 0.08 | 7.7 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 67 | 0.08 | 5.4 | ✓ |
| Stars | 88 | 0.05 | 4.1 | ✓ |
| Security score | 44 | 0.05 | 2.4 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 26 | 0.05 | 1.4 | ✓ |
| Dependent projects | 15 | 0.05 | 0.8 | ✓ |
| Security posture | 0 | 0.12 | 0.0 | - |
| Package downloads | 0 | 0.04 | 0.0 | - |
| Developer Q&A activity | 0 | 0.14 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Activity
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Commits last 30d | 100 | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 65% |
Adoption
Content
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Faq | 6 items | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 66% |
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | Ann index: HNSW, IVF, FLAT, SCANN, DiskANN, GPU_CAGRA · Deployment: self_hosted · Serverless: Yes · Consistency: eventual · Quantization: product · Storage tier: disk_backed | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 60% |
Integrations
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Count | 7 | mediumsource · 2026-08-14 · 60% |
Language
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Go | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 90% |
License
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Spdx | Apache-2.0 | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 95% |
Pricing
Release
Security
Is Milvus the right choice for you?
Tell us the job, the constraints and what you weigh most, and we will rank Milvus against the rest of the vector databases we index, using the same dated evidence weighted your way.
Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works
Is this your product?
This profile was built from public sources without asking you. You can take the badge below and use it anywhere, and you can claim the profile to correct anything we got wrong. Both are free, and neither moves Milvus up or down: nobody can buy rank here, including you.
Take the badge
Live, always current, and free to use on your own site. It shows Milvus's independent score and links back to this profile.
<a href="https://www.vioscale.ai/software/milvus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<img src="https://www.vioscale.ai/badge/software/milvus.svg" alt="Milvus, verified on vioscaleAI" width="330" height="76" loading="lazy" />
</a>Markdown, for a README →
[](https://www.vioscale.ai/software/milvus)Claim the profile
Verify you control the domain and you can correct the facts, add the sources we should be reading, and see how AI assistants are describing Milvus. Free, and it does not change the score.
- Correct anything wrong, with evidence
- Point our crawler at the pages that matter
- See which AI systems are reading this profile
Not the owner? How vendor profiles work