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Milvus 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

Milvus
Ranking in Open Source Databases
9th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (9th)
MySQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
150
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Milvus is 5.5%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 8.8%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MySQL8.8%
Milvus5.5%
Other85.7%
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.
Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
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 best feature of Milvus was finding the closest chunk from a huge amount of data."
"Milvus has good accuracy and performance."
"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."
"I like the accuracy and usability."
"The solution is free to use, which is its most valuable aspect."
"We use it as a data store and from that perspective, we get everything we need."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution is very simple. It's easy to use. That's the most important feature."
"It's a good tool, a good database platform."
"It is free, which is probably its most valuable feature. It is a pretty full-featured relational database. It really does everything we need it to do."
"We are completely comfortable with the database’s performance and it is a mature product. My organization was looking for an open-source database for our smaller customers like the community edition. For bigger customers, we can scale into commercial and supported editions."
"One of the best features is this solution is easy to use."
 

Cons

"Milvus has higher resource consumption, which introduces complexity in implementation."
"Milvus' documentation is not very user-friendly and doesn't help me get started quickly."
"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."
"It would be helpful if there were a graphical user interface to administer, configure, and tune it."
"The technical support should be more knowledgeable and available worldwide."
"MySQL's performance needs to be improved for enterprise-level applications compared to Oracle and Postgres."
"Security is a concern. MySQL could have better security features."
"It should have some code analytical functions. It can also have a monitoring tool."
"MySQL has some unique exchange problems when it comes to migration projects."
"It is not as powerful as SQL Server. It can be more powerful. It is not scalable and has certain limitations, which is not the case with SQL Server."
"​MySQL needs improvements on its diagnostic features.​"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Milvus is an open-source solution."
"Milvus is an open-source solution."
"I rate the solution's pricing as four out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. For our basic needs, it's quite affordable. However, the cost increases when we need to scale up or require high availability. Our developer team of about 600 people uses MySQL without much issue. The pricing becomes more of a concern on the business side, as we have more end users and need constant database availability and scaling. In those cases, the solution gets a bit more expensive, even though it provides good value for the business."
"The solution does not come with a licensing fee."
"There is a license needed for this solution."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten. The solution is not cheap but it’s a fair value. The pricing depends on the use cases of our customers. Some of our customers use the community edition which is license free and a good fit for their use cases. However, we encourage our bigger customers to sign up because of the scalability issues. The paid versions get direct technical support from Oracle."
"The tool is open source."
"The price of the solution is good because we have a good partner."
"This product has a good price point."
"The solution’s pricing depends on customer requirements. A license is not required for the community edition."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
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 Business73
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise61
 

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...
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

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Milvus vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
873,808 professionals have used our research since 2012.