Milvus

Linux · Self-hosted · API

Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.8

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely1 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Milvus is ranked #31 of 74 in database software on Freedom251. It runs on API, Linux, Self-hosted. There is a free plan.

Milvus plans and pricing

All plans

Milvus (open-source software) Free Apache 2.0 licensed · Milvus Lite: recommended for datasets up to a few million vectors · Standalone: suitable for datasets up to 100 million vectors milvus.io · 4 Oct 2026

Compared on database software

Free plan: Yes

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The record

Product: Milvus is an open-source vector database built for GenAI applications.
Search: Milvus supports approximate nearest neighbor, filtering, range, hybrid, and full-text search, plus reranking, fetch, and query operations.
Scale: Milvus supports deployments from local notebook demos to Kubernetes clusters handling tens of billions of vectors.
Deployment: Milvus offers Lite as a Python library, Standalone as a single-machine server, and Distributed for Kubernetes clusters.
Deployment limits: The docs recommend Lite for up to a few million vectors, Standalone up to 100 million, and Distributed for 100 million to tens of billions.
SDKs: Milvus provides official REST, Python, Go, Java, Node.js, and C++ APIs or SDKs; C# is contributed by Microsoft and Rust is under development.
Integrations: The integrations documentation lists tools including LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack, DSPy, Dify, Langflow, OpenAI, Cohere, and HuggingFace.
Security: Milvus documents user authentication, TLS encryption for gRPC and REST traffic, and role-based access control.
Access control: RBAC can control operations at collection, database, and instance levels.
Dependencies: A default Milvus 3.x deployment uses Woodpecker for messaging, etcd for metadata, and MinIO for object storage.
Local use: Milvus Lite can run on a device without a cloud service for local search of private or sensitive data.
Support: The Milvus site lists community channels including Slack, Discord, GitHub, and Milvus Office Hours.
Managed option: Milvus links to Zilliz Cloud as its fully managed offering and describes a free option on its documentation site.
Maker: The documentation says Milvus was developed by Zilliz and is associated with the LF AI & Data Foundation under the Linux Foundation.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

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Sources

milvus.io· checked 4 Oct 2026
milvus.io/docs/overview.md· checked 4 Oct 2026
milvus.io/docs/install-overview.md· checked 4 Oct 2026
milvus.io/docs/v2.4.x/integrations_overview.md· checked 4 Oct 2026
milvus.io/docs/rbac.md· checked 4 Oct 2026
milvus.io/docs/data-infra-integration-overview.md· checked 4 Oct 2026
milvus.io/docs· checked 4 Oct 2026
milvus.io/docs/main_components.md· checked 4 Oct 2026