Vector databases — compare pricing, reliability & setup
Generated 2026-11-02 13:17 UTC · JSON
For rag / embeddings store, the current pick is Chroma (score 79). See cost by profile below.
Ranking — RAG / embeddings store
| Vendor | Score | Starter prod (~5 GB, 1M queries/mo) | Free | Agent-friction | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chroma | 79 | $1.65 | yes | 100 | 2026-11-02 |
| Qdrant | 68.16 | $25 | no | 90 | 2026-11-02 |
| turbopuffer | 66.1 | $17.65 | no | 80 | 2026-11-02 |
| Weaviate | 60.42 | $45.60 | no | 90 | 2026-11-02 |
| Pinecone | 53 | $51.65 | no | 90 | 2026-11-02 |
Agent-friction — can a service be set up without a human?
Each check and its weight is published; the column total is the 0–100 agent-friction score.
| Check | Chroma | Qdrant | turbopuffer | Weaviate | Pinecone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test credentials without a credit card (20) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sandbox or test mode (15) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Setup with no human-only steps (15) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Official CLI (10) | ✓ | × | × | × | × |
| Official MCP server (10) | ✓ | ✓ | × | ✓ | ✓ |
| Markdown docs, current with the SDK (10) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Typed SDK for main languages (10) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Error messages that name the fix (10) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Score | 100 | 90 | 80 | 90 | 90 |
How this category is scored
Per use case, weights published in the data: fit 25% · cost 20% · integration 20% · agent_friction 15% · health 10% · lock_in 10%. Affiliate status is never an input.