Vector Database: Pinecone vs Milvus

Pinecone

Fully managed vector database, zero operational burden. Ideal for rapid prototyping.

import pinecone
pinecone.init(api_key="...")
index = pinecone.Index("my-index")
index.upsert(vectors=[("id1", embedding, metadata)])

Milvus

Open-source vector database, self-hosted. Better for teams with data privacy and cost concerns.

Pinecone is faster to start; Milvus is cheaper long-term. In Building RAG Apps with LangChain we used Pinecone for quick prototyping. See RAG Technology Survey for more context.