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Milvus pricing, features, company info, and alternatives
A factual product page for Milvus as an open-source vector database with managed cloud options.
Last updated April 2026 · Pricing and features verified against official documentation
Pricing
Current public pricing tiers on file for Milvus, last verified Apr 26, 2026.
Free
$0 / month
Free cluster for basic vector database features; includes 5 GB storage, up to 2.5M vCUs per month, and up to 5 collections.
Serverless
Usage-based / usage
Pay-per-operation on read and write usage; vCU unit price is $4 per million vCUs.
Dedicated (Standard)
Usage-based / usage
Pay-as-you-go compute; pricing varies by cloud provider, region, and cluster plan.
Dedicated (Enterprise)
Usage-based / usage
Pay-as-you-go compute; pricing varies by cloud provider, region, and cluster plan.
Dedicated (Business Critical)
Contact sales
Regulated-ready plan with maximum resilience; the plan comparison lists CMEK and HIPAA-ready support.
Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC)
Contact sales
Custom infrastructure deployment with the same features and experience as SaaS Dedicated clusters.
What You Can Do With It
The main capabilities that shape how people use Milvus today.
Runs from Milvus Lite on laptops to Standalone and Distributed deployments, with Zilliz Cloud as the managed option.
Supports vector CRUD, single-vector search, hybrid search, full-text search, and scalar query workflows in the current docs.
Exposes a RESTful API and SDKs in Python, Java, Go, and Node.js, with C# and Rust coverage noted in the docs.
Adds Milvus for AI Agents, including MCP Server and prompt packs for agentic workflows.
Best For
Who Milvus is most clearly built for.
Teams building semantic search, RAG, or agent memory systems on an open-source vector database.
Developers who want to start locally in Milvus Lite and move to Kubernetes or managed cloud later.
Organizations that want managed Milvus without giving up the Milvus API and docs surface.
Company
Leadership and company context for Zilliz.
CEO
Charles Xie
Founders
Charles Xie
Headquarters
Redwood City, California, USA
Platforms
Where you can use Milvus today.
Milvus Lite
Milvus Standalone
Milvus Distributed
Zilliz Cloud
Integrations
Notable connected tools and ecosystem hooks for Milvus.
LangChain
LlamaIndex
Haystack
Dify
Privacy Notes
Publicly stated data-handling notes that matter when evaluating Milvus.
Zilliz Cloud says data is encrypted in transit and at rest, with TLS 1.2+ and AES-256.
The security docs describe SSO, MFA, API keys, IP allowlists, private links, and RBAC for cloud access control.
The FAQ says two-way TLS (mTLS) is not currently available.
Compliance
Public compliance or enterprise-governance signals we found for Milvus.
SOC 2 Type II
GDPR ready
Access
How to integrate or build around Milvus.
Public API
Yes
Docs
Available
Alternatives
Other tools worth considering alongside Milvus.
Vector search engine and database with open-source, managed cloud, hybrid cloud, and private cloud deployment paths.
Open-source AI-native vector database with managed cloud, BYOC, and local deployment paths.
Managed vector database and retrieval platform for search, RAG, and agent applications.
Product Snapshot
Milvus is an open-source vector database from Zilliz. It spans Milvus Lite, Standalone, Distributed, and Zilliz Cloud deployment paths, so teams can move from local development to managed production without changing databases.
What You Can Do With It
- Run vector CRUD, single-vector search, hybrid search, full-text search, and scalar query workflows.
- Start with Milvus Lite on a laptop or notebook, then move to Standalone or Distributed deployments for larger workloads.
- Use the RESTful API and official SDKs to insert, query, and manage collections programmatically.
- Build agentic RAG and memory workflows with the Milvus for AI Agents docs, MCP Server, and prompt packs.
Why It Stands Out
It combines an open-source core with a managed cloud path and keeps the same retrieval model visible across local, self-hosted, and production deployment options.
Tradeoffs To Know
- The deployment surface is split across multiple modes, so teams need to choose between Lite, Standalone, Distributed, and Zilliz Cloud up front.
- Managed-cloud pricing depends on plan, region, and workload type, and storage, data transfer, and audit logs can add separate charges.
- Higher-resilience cloud options sit behind the Zilliz Cloud plan structure, so the full enterprise surface needs a separate procurement check.
Sources
- milvus.io/docs/v2.3.x/product_faq.md
- docs.zilliz.com/docs/free-trials
- docs.zilliz.com/docs/serverless-cluster-cost
- docs.zilliz.com/docs/dedicated-cluster-cost
- docs.zilliz.com/docs/select-zilliz-cloud-service-plans
- docs.zilliz.com/docs/payment-billing
- zilliz.com/about
- zilliz.com/blog/the-evolution-and-future-of-ai-and-its-influence-on-vector-databases-zilliz-ceo-charles-xie
- milvus.io/docs/v2.3.x/overview.md
- milvus.io/docs
- milvus.io/docs/v2.3.x/architecture_overview.md
- milvus.io/docs/milvus_for_agents.md
- milvus.io/docs/ar/milvus_lite.md
- milvus.io/docs/integrations_overview.md
- milvus.io/docs/v2.3.x/integrate_with_llamaindex.md
- milvus.io/docs/zh/integrate_with_langchain.md
- docs.zilliz.com/docs/data-security
- docs.zilliz.com/docs/security
- docs.zilliz.com/docs/faq-security
- milvus.io/docs/v0.11.0/index.md