Qdrant vs Milvus
Compare deployment options, cost efficiency, and features to choose the right vector database for your application.
Database Comparison
Qdrant takes the lead.
Both Qdrant and Milvus 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
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.
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 | Qdrant | Milvus |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud |
| Cost | Starts ~$0.014/hour for smallest node | Free (self-hosted), infra cost only |
| License | Apache 2.0 | Apache 2.0 |
| Index Types | HNSW, Sparse (dot similarity) | IVF, HNSW, DiskANN |
| Cloud Providers | AWS, Azure, GCP | Any |
| Regional Flexibility | high | high |
| Strengths Count | 10 | 9 |
| Weaknesses Count | 5 | 6 |