Zilliz Cloud
Fully managed vector database service built on the open-source Milvus engine, from the team behind Milvus.
Updated · AppBreakup editorial · Web
Is Zilliz Cloud free?
Free plan, plus paid plans
- Dedicated starting price:
- From $126 per month
- Free plan:
- Yes, $0 with 5 GB storage
Checked on Zilliz Cloud's site Nov 8, 2026
Full Zilliz Cloud pricing and plansSwitch from Zilliz Cloud to
All 6- Verified facts
- 5 of 5
- Alternatives ranked
- 6
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About Zilliz Cloud
Zilliz Cloud is the hosted version of Milvus, run by the company that started the Milvus project. It stores embeddings and runs similarity, hybrid and full-text search for retrieval-augmented generation, recommendation and semantic search, without you operating Milvus clusters yourself. You can choose serverless clusters that bill by usage, dedicated clusters sized in compute units with performance-, capacity- or tiered-storage-optimised types, or a bring-your-own-cloud deployment inside your own account. It runs on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure, adds automatic index tuning and its own search engine on top of Milvus, and offers migration tools from other vector stores. It fits teams that already like Milvus or need billion-scale collections with enterprise controls. There's a free tier with limited storage, a 30-day trial of paid plans, and paid tiers from usage-based serverless up to business-critical dedicated clusters with SLAs.
Best for: Teams that want Milvus at large scale without running the clusters themselves.
Zilliz Cloud pricing (checked Nov 8, 2026)
Each line is quoted from Zilliz Cloud's own site, with the page it came from.
| Plan or term | What it says | Checked | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, $0 with 5 GB storage | Nov 8, 2026 | zilliz.com |
| Dedicated starting price | From $126 per month | Nov 8, 2026 | zilliz.com |
| Free trial | 30 days | Nov 8, 2026 | zilliz.com |
Pros and cons
What works
- Compatible with open-source Milvus, so you can move between self-hosted and managed
- Serverless, dedicated and bring-your-own-cloud options
- Available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure
- Tiered-storage clusters cut cost for very large, rarely queried collections
Why people leave
- Compute-unit pricing takes effort to estimate before you run a proof of concept
- Dedicated clusters have a monthly floor even when idle
- More concepts to learn than simpler hosted vector stores
Zilliz Cloud vs Milvus, Pinecone and Qdrant
From each app's listing and the prices verified on its own site. A dash means we haven't verified it yet.
| Attribute | Zilliz Cloud | Milvus | Pinecone | Qdrant |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan + paid | Open source | Free plan + paid | Open source |
| Verified price | From $126 per month | — | $20 a month flat (Builder) | — |
| Free plan | Yes, $0 with 5 GB storage | Free app | Yes (Starter) | Free app |
| Open source | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Platforms | Web | Self-hosted, Linux | Web | Self-hosted, Web |
Top Zilliz Cloud alternatives
See all 6- 1
Milvus66.5The same open-source engine, free to self-host if you'd rather run the clusters yourself.
- 2
Pinecone64.8Popular serverless vector database with a simpler API and less cluster tuning to think about.
- 3
Qdrant61.8Open-source Rust vector database with a managed cloud and strong payload filtering.
- 4
turbopuffer59.4Object-storage-backed search that can be cheaper for very large, many-tenant datasets.
- 5
Weaviate57.5Managed or self-hosted vector search with built-in hybrid keyword search and vectorizer modules, without the Milvus stack.
Why people left Zilliz Cloud
In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.
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Zilliz Cloud: common questions
What is Zilliz Cloud?
Zilliz Cloud: Fully managed vector database service built on the open-source Milvus engine, from the team behind Milvus. Best for teams that want Milvus at large scale without running the clusters themselves. Available for Web.
Is Zilliz Cloud free?
Zilliz Cloud has a free plan and paid plans. Free plan: Yes, $0 with 5 GB storage (checked on Zilliz Cloud's own site).
How much does Zilliz Cloud cost?
Zilliz Cloud is free with paid plans. Free plan: Yes, $0 with 5 GB storage; Dedicated starting price: From $126 per month; Free trial: 30 days. Checked on Zilliz Cloud's own site, November 2026.
Does Zilliz Cloud have a free trial or refund?
Free trial: 30 days. Source: Zilliz Cloud's own site.
Is Zilliz Cloud open source?
No, Zilliz Cloud is not open source. Open-source alternatives include Milvus, Qdrant and Weaviate.
What platforms does Zilliz Cloud run on?
Zilliz Cloud is available for Web.
What are the best alternatives to Zilliz Cloud?
The highest-ranked Zilliz Cloud alternatives right now are Milvus, Pinecone and Qdrant. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.
Zilliz Cloud vs Milvus: what's the difference?
Zilliz Cloud is free with paid plans; Milvus is free and open source. Milvus is open source and Zilliz Cloud is not. Only Zilliz Cloud runs on Web. Only Milvus runs on Linux.