LanceDB vs Milvus
Compare deployment options, cost efficiency, and features to choose the right vector database for your application.
Database Comparison
LanceDB takes the lead.
Both LanceDB and Milvus are powerful vector databases designed for efficient similarity search and storage. However, their deployment options and features differ in important ways.
Why LanceDB:
- LanceDB ranks higher overall
- LanceDB offers more deployment options
- LanceDB has 4 more strengths
LanceDB
LanceDB is an open-source, AI-native multimodal lakehouse designed for billion-scale vector search. Built on the Lance columnar format, it combines embedded simplicity with cloud-scale performance. LanceDB's disk-based architecture with compute-storage separation enables up to 100x cost savings compared to memory-based solutions while supporting multimodal data (text, images, video, audio).
Milvus
Milvus is a flexible, open-source vector database built for local and hybrid cloud deployment. With support for IVF, HNSW, and DiskANN, it provides the widest indexing variety for tuning performance on large-scale workloads. Milvus is ideal when you want control, configurability, and low infrastructure cost.
Feature Comparison
Infrastructure & Technical Details
| Feature | LanceDB | Milvus |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Embedded/Local, Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud (LanceDB Cloud) | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud |
| Cost | OSS: Free; Cloud: usage-based with $100 free credits; Enterprise: custom pricing | Free (self-hosted), infra cost only |
| License | Apache 2.0 | Apache 2.0 |
| Index Types | IVF-PQ, IVF-HNSW-PQ, BTree | IVF, HNSW, DiskANN |
| Cloud Providers | AWS, Azure, GCP, Any (self-hosted) | Any |
| Regional Flexibility | high | high |
| Strengths | 13 | 9 |
| Weaknesses | 9 | 6 |