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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
10th
Ranking in Vector Databases
8th
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
3rd
Ranking in Vector Databases
12th
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 August 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Milvus is 5.9%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 17.1%, down from 20.0% 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

"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 best feature of Milvus was finding the closest chunk from a huge amount of data."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"PostgreSQL is very easy to use. I have experience in Oracle SQL and PostgreSQL uses the same syntax which makes it is easy for me to develop."
"One of the most valuable features is real-time data capture; it optimizes database performance. I think using real-time data capture reduces job running time and the amount of data sent at once with batch loads."
"Initial setup is simple."
"The database has excellent performance."
"What I like is that it's quite powerful in terms of performance."
"It's a useful solution, that can be widely used."
"It has completely met our needs. It works, and it is robust. We haven't had any problems with what PostgreSQL does for us and the way it does it. That's why we've been using it for so long. We understand it, and it does the job."
 

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."
"Milvus could make it simpler. Simplifying the requirements and making it more accessible. It could be more user-friendly."
"I've heard that when we store too much data in Milvus, it becomes slow and does not work properly."
"The solution could improve the integration."
"We have to set up event API, which takes a lot of events from the user."
"Instead of the installation agent downloading all the packages for the install, it should allow the user to download the packages separately on their own to do the install."
"The user interface could be a bit better."
"I find it difficult to get connectors on the tool. For example, .NET has only one free provider in PostgreSQL. I need to pay the provider if I need something more sophisticated features. Other languages like PHP and Java have good community support. We need community support for .NET."
"PostgreSQL doesn't have a feature for temporal SQL, which is useful for gathering versions of data. This feature should be included in PostgreSQL. This feature is available in MariaDB, SQL Server, Oracle Database, and DB2."
"The price could be better."
"I don't think PostgreSQL supports bulk databases, so it needs to have more capabilities in terms of managing the bulk data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Milvus is an open-source solution."
"Milvus is an open-source solution."
"The licensing model is good."
"Our company pays for it. There are free versions available, but for advanced features, you obviously have to pay."
"It is free, but if you need support, you can go for the commercial version called EnterpriseDB. They provide paid support, and they can even do hosting for you if you want standby and support."
"It is free. There is no license on it."
"It is free. In terms of operating costs, it basically needs the same platform on which Oracle runs."
"The tool is cheaply priced compared to other RDBMS providers in the market."
"There is an annual license."
"PostgreSQL is a free and open-source database."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
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: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.