Faiss vs MySQL comparison

Meta and Oracle are both solutions in the Open Source Databases category. Meta is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.5, while Oracle is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Meta holds a 3.8% mindshare in OSD, compared to Oracle’s 9.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Meta users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

Faiss

Read 3 Faiss reviews

3,467 Views
1,699 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

MySQL

Read 153 MySQL reviews

8,855 Views
5,136 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Faiss

MySQL

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

MySQL and Faiss cater to different needs in technology infrastructure, with MySQL focusing on database management and Faiss on similarity search and clustering. MySQL has the upper hand in structured data management, while Faiss leads in fast vector-based searches.

Features: MySQL is known for ACID-compliance, robust indexing, and security, essential for structured data applications. It supports SQL queries and transaction processing. Faiss excels in swift similarity searches and machine learning on large datasets, providing high-dimensional nearest neighbor search capabilities, suitable for AI environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: MySQL offers comprehensive documentation and community support for straightforward deployment, assisted by numerous online resources. Faiss requires a deeper understanding of machine learning for effective deployment, lacking the extensive customer support seen with MySQL. Nonetheless, it remains a potent solution for knowledgeable users.

Pricing and ROI: MySQL, as an open-source solution, presents low initial costs and a high ROI, supported by its community-driven features. Faiss, also open-source, involves no direct software costs, but requires investment in expertise and infrastructure. Its ROI is contingent on its integration in AI-focused projects.

To learn more, read our detailed Faiss vs. MySQL Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Faiss vs. MySQL

February 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Faiss

Ranking in Open Source Databases

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

3.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (6th)

MySQL

Ranking in Open Source Databases

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

153

Ranking in other categories

Relational Databases Tools (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Faiss is 3.8%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 9.7%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
MySQL	9.7%
Faiss	3.8%
Other	86.5%

Open Source Databases

Featured Reviews

Kalindu Sekarage

Senior Software Engineer

Integration improves accuracy and supports token-level embedding

The best features FAISS offers for my team include seamless integration with Colbert and the ability to use FAISS via the Ragatouille framework, which is tailor-made for using the Colbert model. Feature-wise, FAISS allows for more accurate result retrieval, and retrieval speed is also good when comparing the index size. Regarding features, I also emphasize that the usability of FAISS is very seamless, particularly its integration with Colbert and Ragatouille. FAISS has positively impacted my organization by helping us increase the accuracy of retrieval documents; when we store documents in token-level embedding, the accuracy will be high. Additionally, we do not need any external server to host FAISS, allowing us to integrate it with our backend framework, making it a very flexible framework.

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Pranay Jain

Senior software developer at Simplifyvms

Robust relational data foundation has supported rapid growth and improved user data management

MySQL can be improved in several ways. It has connectivity errors and administration troubles that sometimes occur, though not consistently. MySQL has slow queries; sometimes when I run a query, it scans the whole table, and if the data is very large, it takes too much time to retrieve the data. There can be resource bottlenecks with RAM and CPU usage being a little lower than ideal. Monitoring system metrics is crucial because we need to identify and address these types of issues. Schema designing is another area for improvement, as a poorly designed schema can lead to data redundancy in the future. If I haven't initially planned for a 20 lakh user database and am only working with a 1,000 user case, it will be very problematic because in the future, it will affect the whole table structure, and we will need to change everything. Thorough thinking is necessary before even creating the table. MySQL documentation could be better. Sometimes when I need to find something related to MySQL, the documentation is not very comprehensive. If I have a problem with it, I have to go to Stack Overflow or something similar to get the full detail. Additionally, sometimes when we are connecting to local MySQL, it says we cannot connect to SQL, and I don't know the reason. The error messages are not very helpful, so we have to investigate those cases manually. There are multiple instances of this occurring. Documentation can be better overall. The integration capabilities could be improved slightly. Whatever I have used is working fine for me currently, but it could be a little better. The UI of MySQL Workbench, which I use, is not appealing to me, so it could be improved. MySQL overall is very good, and the foundation is very strong. We can develop features around it and different types of things inside it, which will make it better in the future.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The product has better performance and stability compared to one of its competitors."

"I used Faiss as a basic database."

"Apart from the features that are in the enterprise part, we find the database to be valuable. The connectors and the backup features are valuable as well. We use the basic database. We don't really use the extra features. Our clients like the security features in the database."

"MySQL is the best option for the Laravel PHP framework."

"We use the basic features of MySQL. The interface that allows us to see the parameters of the server is good."

"MySQL is an open-source product and has good community support. If you encounter any problem, you can easily ask other members of the community to help. They help you a lot. On top of being free, MySQL is a cross-platform database, meaning it can work on both Windows and Linux. It is very good for us."

"MySQL is easy to integrate. It works with just about every language."

"SKIP LOCKED is a valuable feature."

"It is a very stable solution. I deployed the product six years ago, and it still works fine."

"The easy access to the data and the ability to sort the data with multiple methods are very valuable features."

More MySQL pros

Cons

"It would be beneficial if I could set a parameter and see different query mechanisms being run."

"One of the drawbacks of Faiss is that it works only in-memory. If it could provide separate persistent storage without relying on in-memory, it would reduce the overhead."

"It could be more accessible for handling larger data sets."

"The backup methods need improvement."

"I would like to see some improvements in the solution’s integration aspects."

"It does not stand out regarding scalability. When the company size increases, the user base having actual experience with (very) large MySQL solutions is reduced."

"It can have better monitoring. In addition, the enterprise manager should be able to cater to more than one virtual machine. Currently, you need one license per server. It seems a bit too much to get one license for one enterprise manager. I hope the enterprise manager for MySQL can accommodate more virtual machines for MySQL."

"The workbench could be improved. In particular, error messages can be improved, which are horrific and completely unhelpful. I'd like to see improved parsing of errors. When you write SQL and it crashes, it usually is something completely irrelevant and not helpful. I've started to use GPT 3.5 for finding out how to do things. I got to do something a bit different, and that I found to be very useful. If there was some way to tie it into one of the new AI tools, that would probably be a good idea."

"The solution could improve by having better performance and security."

"The user interface could be more user friendly. Mainly because most of the times we see black and white digital lines. Something like Python."

"The licensing of the solution is on the expensive side."

More MySQL cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Faiss is an open-source solution."

"It is an open-source tool."

"We do have a couple of clients who choose to use the paid, enterprise version of the solution and who take full advantage of it."

"My company uses MySQL's corporate licenses."

"We're using the open-source version right now, which is free. I do see some value in some of the more enterprise functions. We're using the open-source version right now, and I was interested in the MySQL Enterprise version really for the tools that they provide, but we decided not to make the purchase."

"There is not a license required for this solution."

"This product has a good price point."

"The solution does not come with a licensing fee."

"Microsoft licensing for SQL Server is probably ten times more expensive. I used to work for the government, and I remember when we were looking into upgrading to the enterprise version of SQL Server 2019, the licensing was going to cost 350,000. To get the equivalent in the cloud, it was going to be about four grand to get the same processing power and everything else. With MySQL, it was going to be about 300 for the same licensing. Cost-wise, for sure, there is a huge difference. Would you prefer to pay 300 a month or 3,000 to have the same amount of data resources? You might lose a few options that you need, but it isn't worth the price difference."

"There is a license for this solution. A lot of the time the solution gets bundled with other hardware or software purchases."

More MySQL pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	75
Midsize Enterprise	32
Large Enterprise	62

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Faiss?

I used Faiss as a basic database.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Faiss?

I did not purchase FAISS through the AWS Marketplace because FAISS is an open-source product. My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is straightforward, as there is no cost for acqui...

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What needs improvement with Faiss?

I currently do not think there is anything to be improved based on our experience, as Faiss performs as we expected for our workflow. I would like to see improvement in the fact that FAISS currentl...

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Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?

MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...

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Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?

I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...

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What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?

One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...

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Comparisons

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Compared 9% of the time

PostgreSQL vs Faiss

Compared 8% of the time

Supabase Vector vs Faiss

Compared 7% of the time

Elastic Search vs Faiss

Compared 7% of the time

OpenSearch vs Faiss

Compared 5% of the time

More Faiss Competitors

Firebird SQL vs MySQL

Compared 23% of the time

PostgreSQL vs MySQL

Compared 10% of the time

SQL Server vs MySQL

Compared 6% of the time

MariaDB vs MySQL

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Open Source Databases

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

MySQL

January 2026

Download MySQL product report

Overview

Faiss is a powerful library for efficient similarity search and nearest neighbor retrieval in large-scale datasets. It is widely used in image and text processing, recommendation systems, and natural language processing.

Users appreciate its speed, scalability, and ability to handle high-dimensional data effectively. Faiss also offers easy integration and extensive support for different programming languages.

Its valuable features include efficient search capabilities, support for large-scale datasets, various similarity measures, easy integration, and comprehensive documentation and community support.

Sample Customers

1. Facebook 2. Airbnb 3. Pinterest 4. Twitter 5. Microsoft 6. Uber 7. LinkedIn 8. Netflix 9. Spotify 10. Adobe 11. eBay 12. Dropbox 13. Yelp 14. Salesforce 15. IBM 16. Intel 17. Nvidia 18. Qualcomm 19. Samsung 20. Sony 21. Tencent 22. Alibaba 23. Baidu 24. JD.com 25. Rakuten 26. Zillow 27. Booking.com 28. Expedia 29. TripAdvisor 30. Rakuten 31. Rakuten Viber 32. Rakuten Ichiba

Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.

Buyer's Guide

Faiss vs. MySQL

February 2026

Free Report: Faiss vs. MySQL

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