Side by side
Meilisearch vs Milvus
Both stand on ai search and discovery platforms software. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.
Free plan APILinuxMac+3
Meilisearch offers multiple search approaches and deployment choices, with a free self-hosted option and paid cloud service. Self-hosting shifts infrastructure and maintenance work to the user, while cloud pricing starts at $20/mo.
Visit Meilisearch Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted
Milvus offers a free, open-source path from local vector search to large distributed deployments. Choose a deployment with its documented scale recommendations in mind, especially since Standalone cannot be upgraded online to a cluster.
Visit MilvusThe facts
| Meilisearch | Milvus | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Not published | Not published |
| Runs on | API, Linux, Mac, Self-hosted, Web, Windows | API, Linux, Self-hosted |
| Lowest paid plan | Cloud: $20 a month | Free or on request |
| Plans published | 3 | 1 |
| Maker | Not published | Not published |
| Website | meilisearch.com | milvus.io |
| On ai search and discovery platforms software | #4 of 28 | #8 of 28 |
Meilisearch: what it does well
- Full-text search includes automatic typo tolerance.
- Hybrid search combines keyword and semantic retrieval.
- Supports more than 30 languages.
- Available for self-hosting or as cloud SaaS.
- Self-hosted option has no usage limits.
What to know first
- Self-hosting requires managing infrastructure and updates.
- Self-hosted users also manage backups and scaling.
- Cloud starts at $20/mo.
- Enterprise pricing is custom.
Milvus: what it does well
- Supports hybrid, full-text and approximate nearest-neighbor search.
- Three deployment options cover different dataset sizes.
- Lite supports local search without a cloud service.
- Provides authentication, TLS and role-based access control.
What to know first
- Online upgrade from Standalone to a cluster is unsupported.
- Rust SDK is still under development.
- Default 3.x deployment uses Woodpecker, etcd and MinIO.
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