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Milvus vs PostgreSQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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

Milvus
Ranking in Open Source Databases
9th
Ranking in Vector Databases
6th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PostgreSQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
1st
Ranking in Vector Databases
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Milvus is 5.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 18.0%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Sameer Bhangale - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides quick and easy containerization, but documentation is not very user-friendly
Milvus' documentation is not very user-friendly and doesn't help me get started quickly. Chroma DB provides super user-friendly documentation, enabling new users to get started quickly. Chroma DB's setup doesn't have many dependencies, whereas Milvus usually comes with some dependencies because of the way it needs to be deployed. Unlike Milvus, it's very easy to do POCs with Chroma DB.
PavithrarajShetty - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers simplicity and is cheaply priced
I haven't gone through the scalability aspect since I was using MySQL Server. I haven't worked to a high level in PostgreSQL, but with MySQL Server, I have managed clustering and partitioning. I think I haven't put much focus on PostgreSQL, so I am not sure how it behaves or how it works.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature of Milvus was finding the closest chunk from a huge amount of data."
"Milvus offers multiple methods for calculating similarities or distances between vectors, such as L2 norm and cosine similarity. These methods help in comparing different vectors based on specific use cases. For instance, in our use case, we find that the L2 distance works best, but you can experiment with different methods to find the most suitable one for your needs."
"Milvus has good accuracy and performance."
"The solution is well containerized, and since containerization is quick and easy for me, I can scale it up quickly."
"I like the accuracy and usability."
"The performance is good."
"Clustering will be the number 1 feature. It is also open-source so it is free. It can also be clustered, to allow fault tolerance."
"With the database, you can provide a multi-component at the same service with the same performance, scalability, or all those things."
"It is very simple to manage."
"Initial setup is simple."
"It is very scalable and comes with a bonus: no licensing issues as you scale with your databases."
"The built-in code procedural language is the most valuable. It has a built-in layer for code procedures. Its installation is very easy and quick, and it is free. It is also stable, and its performance is also good."
"The solution is scalable, it is very good."
 

Cons

"I've heard that when we store too much data in Milvus, it becomes slow and does not work properly."
"Milvus could make it simpler. Simplifying the requirements and making it more accessible. It could be more user-friendly."
"Milvus' documentation is not very user-friendly and doesn't help me get started quickly."
"Milvus has higher resource consumption, which introduces complexity in implementation."
"The pricing could be better."
"Sometimes, the views create problems. If you don't have the view, sometimes what happens is you need to have the drivers properly set up for PostgreSQL."
"The interface climate could be better."
"The scalability is limited."
"The interface could be much better."
"They need to improve the user experience of the management."
"PostgreSQL could improve by adding data warehousing tools."
"As PostgreSQL is an open-source product, you do have to do a bit more configuration and management yourself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Milvus is an open-source solution."
"Milvus is an open-source solution."
"It is also open-source so it is free."
"The solution requires a license."
"There is an annual license."
"We do not pay for licensing."
"The community version of Postgre is basically free."
"It is free. There is no license on it."
"We use the open-source version of PostgreSQL and not the enterprise edition."
"PostgreSQL is open-source, so if capable admins are available then the setup cost can be $0."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Milvus?
I like the accuracy and usability.
What needs improvement with Milvus?
Milvus could be improved how it could automatically generate insights from the data it holds. Milvus maintains embedding information and knows the relationships between data points. It would be use...
What is your primary use case for Milvus?
Milvus is primarily used in RAG, which involves retrieving relevant documents or data to augment the generation of new content. Milvus helps convert text and other data into a vector space, and the...
How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...
What do you like most about PostgreSQL?
It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?
The tool is free of cost. For now, it's not about making money. But once we perfect it, we can offer it to customers willing to pay for support and other services. Most of my deployments are free.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about Milvus vs. PostgreSQL and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.