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Faiss vs MySQL 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

Faiss
Ranking in Open Source Databases
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (9th)
MySQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Faiss is 3.8%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 10.3%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MySQL10.3%
Faiss3.8%
Other85.9%
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Kalindu Sekarage - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
Offers robust security and availability with impressive replication capabilities
Regarding their documentation and interface, there is room for improvement. Documentation is definitely required when running multiple databases on a cluster system. The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation. When there are multiple application servers connecting to the MySQL cluster and going through the MySQL load balancer, the documentation is not user-friendly. It's there, but only technical persons with deep knowledge of the MySQL database can implement it. Most of the community users or ISVs who use MySQL don't have many technical persons or DBA experts, so they face some challenges for the high availability of connecting high available databases from high available applications. That documentation should be simplified.

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."
"MySQL 5.6 has a great many new features, including, but certainly not limited to, a number of performance improvements."
"The solution is easy to use."
"MySQL is a light database. It's not very complex. It's easy to develop, easy to maintain, and easy to back up and restore."
"For sure, the solution is very stable."
"The easy access to the data and the ability to sort the data with multiple methods are very valuable features."
"MySQL gives us a very user-friendly workspace in which to query the database."
"The one interesting thing about this product is that it is open source. It comes from an open source product. MySQL has been positioned as open source, but it also provides support."
"It is a scalable solution."
 

Cons

"It could be more accessible for handling larger data sets."
"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."
"Even for the best database, we always want the database to perform much better, so we wish MySQL would be much better, in terms of performance."
"The GUI interface probably can be improved. Let us say I want to see the relationships in the database. In the query analyzer, I would like to go and drop the tables and create relationships between the tables. I haven't found a feature like that in MySQL. It was a shortcoming even in SQL Server. MySQL can have more performance monitoring tools. I know Google has these tools, but within MySQL, there are not that many tools to monitor things like performance and database locking. They might be in there, and I might not be familiar enough to know where they are. I am a pretty new user of MySQL."
"There are some issues with compatibility with Java environments that need to be improved. When Oracle bought this solution there were some driver changes that caused some issues with operations."
"The full-text search feature must be improved."
"I would like to see more integrations of the solution with other platforms and improve the support on different data types."
"It could be a little bit simpler to use."
"MySQL doesn't have the auto-clustering and database clustering features that other competitors provide. They can include these features."
"I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. It does break down a little at times."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an open-source tool."
"Faiss is an open-source solution."
"There is no licensing fee."
"MySQL is released under an open-source license, so you have nothing to pay to use it."
"There is a license for this solution. A lot of the time the solution gets bundled with other hardware or software purchases."
"MySQL is a cheap solution."
"It is open source. We prefer it for POCs because it saves the license cost."
"We've never bought a commercial license. We just use the open-source community edition."
"MySQL is a cheap solution."
"It's cheaper than other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Faiss?
I used Faiss as a basic database.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about Faiss vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.