Turbopuffer vs Milvus
Compare deployment options, cost efficiency, and features to choose the right vector database for your application.
Database Comparison
Turbopuffer takes the lead.
Both Turbopuffer and Milvus are powerful vector databases designed for efficient similarity search and storage. However, their deployment options and features differ in important ways.
Why Turbopuffer:
- Turbopuffer ranks higher overall
- Turbopuffer is more cost-effective
- Milvus has more permissive licensing
- Milvus has 2 more strengths
Turbopuffer
⭐Turbopuffer is a fully managed cloud vector database built around a centroid-optimized SPFresh index. It is designed for extremely low-cost, large-scale storage, leveraging object storage engines like S3, GCS, or Azure Blob.
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 | Turbopuffer | Milvus |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | BYOC, Managed Cloud | Self-Hosted, Managed Cloud |
| Cost | Minimum commitment $64/month | Free (self-hosted), infra cost only |
| License | Proprietary | Apache 2.0 |
| Index Types | SPFresh | IVF, HNSW, DiskANN |
| Cloud Providers | AWS, GCP, Azure | Any |
| Regional Flexibility | high | high |
| Strengths Count | 7 | 9 |
| Weaknesses Count | 7 | 6 |