Milvus vs Qdrant
Compare deployment options, cost efficiency, and features to choose the right vector database for your application.
Database Comparison
Qdrant takes the lead.
Both Milvus and Qdrant are powerful vector databases designed for efficient similarity search and storage. However, their deployment options and features differ in important ways.
Why Qdrant:
- Qdrant offers more deployment options
- Milvus is more cost-effective
- Qdrant has 1 more strengths
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.
Qdrant
Qdrant is an open-source vector database available as both a managed cloud service and a self-hosted solution. It offers strong HNSW performance, flexible deployment, and predictable cost structures, making it suitable for both startups and large-scale RAG workloads.
Feature Comparison
Infrastructure & Technical Details
| Feature | Milvus | Qdrant |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud |
| Cost | Free (self-hosted), infra cost only | Starts ~$0.014/hour for smallest node |
| License | Apache 2.0 | Apache 2.0 |
| Index Types | IVF, HNSW, DiskANN | HNSW, Sparse (dot similarity) |
| Cloud Providers | Any | AWS, Azure, GCP |
| Regional Flexibility | high | high |
| Strengths Count | 9 | 10 |
| Weaknesses Count | 6 | 5 |