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Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs Milvus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Azure Database for PostgreSQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (5th)
Milvus
Ranking in Open Source Databases
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Azure Database for PostgreSQL is 1.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Milvus is 4.8%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azure Database for PostgreSQL1.9%
Milvus4.8%
Other93.3%
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Sathish Palanisamy - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Data Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Improves database performance, supports AI integration, and accelerates customer-focused innovation
Azure Database for PostgreSQL can be improved in the area of elastic capabilities. One of the things we were actively looking for is the elastic feature, which was made a GA at this Ignite event. I am really happy that finally in Azure, we have a product which we can use for elastic clusters. If you are bound with a single server, then you have a vertical limit. Now you do not have any limits. As long as your use case grows, we can grow. The only thing I would maybe be thinking about is we should also allow customers to pick different node sizes for every node inside the elastic eventually. Some nodes do not need that big capacity. So that may be a nice-to-have feature, though it is not a must-have at this point.
reviewer2395743 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Scientist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Helps convert text and other data into a vector space but could provide detailed insights
Milvus is an open-source vector database designed for efficiently handling large-scale, high-dimensional data. It supports various types of data sources and can be deployed on your own premises, which is crucial for maintaining data security. 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 also includes its own user interface, known as the Milvus Dashboard, which allows you to visualize and manage your data, including embeddings and metadata. You can filter your data based on various criteria, including metadata and file names, which provides flexibility in data management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Backups are easy, resizing is quick, and the query analyzers help me find out what's happening in each of the queries."
"Automatic patching and backups have a huge impact on my database management strategy—we have an operations team of two people and do not have time to handle database maintenance manually, so we chose platform-as-a-service for this reason."
"Compared to my previous expenses for maintaining an on-premise PostgreSQL database, Azure Database for PostgreSQL is far easier, far simpler, and far cheaper in my opinion."
"The most valuable features of Azure Database for PostgreSQL are its networking capabilities, which allow for integration with other Azure services."
"Overall, Azure Database for PostgreSQL has been good for us."
"The flexibility that we have with the JSONB functionality allowed us to get data into the system, build the POC, get it in front of people, and then as we find needs for things to be more normally normalized, we can go back and make those changes."
"We use PostgreSQL to speed up application development. Our applications are ready sooner because we don't need to depend on other database teams."
"The operational efficiency of Azure Database for PostgreSQL is good."
"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."
"The solution is well containerized, and since containerization is quick and easy for me, I can scale it up quickly."
"The best feature of Milvus was finding the closest chunk from a huge amount of data."
"I like the accuracy and usability."
"Milvus has good accuracy and performance."
 

Cons

"Microsoft support for Azure Database for PostgreSQL rates about four out of ten based on my experience. You always get the same questions with Microsoft support, and it's not really straightforward."
"We would love to definitely see scalability. We would love to see it grow as more people use it and it can handle the data and maybe tell us some optimizations by reporting on what we have."
"I would add that from my perspective, Microsoft technical support isn't great; we have tickets sitting in the bucket."
"My impressions of the latency and availability of Azure Database for PostgreSQL is that it is a concern that arises post-migration."
"Performance is one area that has constraints for our customers. I believe there could be improvements in the mirroring part and Change Data Capture (CDC)."
"The critical service is the Azure OpenAI service. It would help to make it simpler and easier to integrate with that or cognitive services."
"Occasionally, we experience throughput issues due to bandwidth limitations of client setups with Azure, which have limited connections, but as far as the service itself goes, it has been rock solid."
"They can offer more RAG extensions. Currently, it only has the vector search. It does not presently support knowledge graph functionalities as Neo4j does. It also does not offer some tools to improve indexing the way other vector databases offer."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing experience is positive. Azure Database for PostgreSQL reduces the need for hardware investments, and the pay-as-you-go pricing model positively affects database-related costs by allowing us to start small and scale as needed."
"We do not pay for a full-year subscription because our usage is still at the beginning phase and not much. The pay-as-you-go model works well for us."
"The pay-as-you-go pricing model plays a critical role in managing database-related costs and resource allocation. We build using Infrastructure as Code (IAC) and maintain a focus on FinOps to control Azure service costs. Some clients are pushy on price. It's critical to automate it, so we're just using it when appropriate and switching it off in certain scenarios."
"There aren't any notable areas for improvement that I could see. PostgreSQL was self-sufficient with no need for additional database knowledge to maintain it."
"Milvus is an open-source solution."
"Milvus is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Azure Database for PostgreSQL is positive; I appreciate it all. The pricing is very cost-effective and stable given that we have many data...
What needs improvement with Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
Azure Database for PostgreSQL can be improved in ways I'm very curious to explore with Horizon. I'm interested in seeing how the fully enterprise-hardened features change things and where that blur...
What is your primary use case for Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
My main use cases for Azure Database for PostgreSQL came from a personal project to scratch an itch, and it was the easiest one to go grab. I appreciate how easy PostgreSQL is to get running locall...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering Milvus?
Milvus works well for various use cases and is quite flexible in terms of deployment. For on-premises deployment, you can use the open-source version with Docker. The system requirements are relati...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
1. Alibaba Group 2. Tencent 3. Baidu 4. JD.com 5. Meituan 6. Xiaomi 7. Didi Chuxing 8. ByteDance 9. Huawei 10. ZTE 11. Lenovo 12. Haier 13. China Mobile 14. China Telecom 15. China Unicom 16. Ping An Insurance 17. China Life Insurance 18. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China 19. Bank of China 20. Agricultural Bank of China 21. China Construction Bank 22. PetroChina 23. Sinopec 24. China National Offshore Oil Corporation 25. China Southern Airlines 26. Air China 27. China Eastern Airlines 28. China Railway Group 29. China Railway Construction Corporation 30. China Communications Construction Company 31. China Merchants Group 32. China Evergrande Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs. Milvus and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.