Milvus vs SingleStore: Vector Databases Comparison
Compare Milvus and SingleStore side by side. Both are tools in the Vector Databases category.
Updated February 28, 2026
The short answer
Choose Milvus if extreme scalability handling billions of vectors in distributed environments.
Choose SingleStore if unified platform combining transactional, analytical, and vector workloads.
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Quick Comparison
| Category | Vector Databases | Vector Databases |
| Pricing | Open Source | — |
| Best For | Organizations that need vector search at billion-scale with high throughput | — |
| Website | milvus.io | singlestore.com |
| Key Features |
| — |
| Use Cases |
| — |
Pros & Cons: Milvus vs SingleStore
- +Extreme scalability handling billions of vectors in distributed environments
- +Fully open-source under Apache 2.0 with no vendor lock-in
- +Hybrid search combining dense and sparse vectors in single queries
- +Rich index flexibility with IVF, HNSW, DiskANN and GPU acceleration
- +Managed cloud option reduces DevOps burden with auto-scaling
- −Complex distributed architecture requiring Kubernetes for production
- −Steep learning curve for index tuning and deployment configuration
- −High memory and storage requirements for large datasets
- −No in-place vector updates requiring delete and re-insert workarounds
- +Unified platform combining transactional, analytical, and vector workloads
- +Co-located vector data with relational data for powerful SQL queries
- +Multiple vector index types (FLAT, IVF_FLAT, IVF_PQ, HNSW_FLAT, HNSW_PQ)
- +MySQL and MongoDB wire protocol compatibility for easy integration
- +Proven at scale with 100+ Fortune 500 customers
- −More complex than dedicated vector databases for pure vector search use cases
- −Pricing not transparently published
- −May have higher learning curve for teams unfamiliar with distributed SQL
- −Recent acquisition may lead to product changes
Pricing: Milvus vs SingleStore
- · Apache 2.0 license
- · Self-hosted on Kubernetes
- · Full feature access
- · Community support
- · 5GB storage
- · 2.5M vCUs/month
- · Up to 5 collections
- · Up to 32 query CUs
- · Manual scaling
- · Email/ticket support
- · 99.95% uptime SLA
- · SSO and RBAC
- · 24/7 enterprise support
- · VPC peering
When to Choose Milvus vs SingleStore
- Billion-vector similarity search
- Large-scale recommendation systems
- Image and video retrieval
How to Choose a Vector Databases Tool
Key criteria to evaluate when comparing Vector Databases solutions:
About Milvus
Milvus is an open-source vector database built for scalable similarity search, capable of handling billions of vectors in distributed environments. Created by Zilliz, a company founded in 2017 by Charles Xie (former founding engineer of Oracle 12c cloud database), Milvus has become one of the most widely deployed vector databases with over 30,000 GitHub stars.
The database supports multiple index types including IVF, HNSW, and DiskANN, with GPU-accelerated search and hybrid search combining dense and sparse vectors in a single query. Milvus runs on Kubernetes for production deployments and is governed under the LF AI & Data Foundation. Zilliz Cloud offers a fully managed version with automatic scaling, starting with a free tier and usage-based pricing from $4 per million vector compute units.
Zilliz has raised approximately $113-132 million in funding, with a $60 million Series B extension in August 2022 led by Prosperity7 Ventures (Aramco). The company is headquartered in San Francisco with roughly 140 employees. Zilliz was named "Highest Performer" and "Easiest to Use" in G2's Summer 2025 Vector Database Grid Report.
About SingleStore
SingleStore is a real-time, unified, distributed SQL database that combines transactional, analytical, and vector data workloads in a single platform. MySQL and MongoDB wire protocol-compatible, SingleStore enables organizations to scale from one to one million customers, handling SQL, JSON, full text, and vector workloads all in one unified platform. Unlike traditional vector databases, SingleStore stores vector data in relational tables alongside other types of data, allowing easy querying of extended metadata and other attributes with the full power of SQL. The system supports both semantic search using FLAT, IVF_FLAT, IVF_PQ, IVF_PQFS, HNSW_FLAT, and HNSW_PQ vector indexes, with dot product and Euclidean distance for similarity matching. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in San Francisco, SingleStore serves hundreds of customers including 100+ Fortune 500, Forbes Global 2000, and Inc. 5000 brands. The company was acquired by Vector Capital in September 2025.
What is Vector Databases?
Purpose-built databases for storing, indexing, and querying high-dimensional vector embeddings used in semantic search, RAG, and recommendation systems.
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