Infrastructure
Pinecone vs pgvector: which vector database to pick
Managed vector DB vs Postgres extension — scale, cost, and operational simplicity.
/ Our verdict
pgvector if you have Postgres. Pinecone for scale beyond 10M vectors.
3
Pinecone wins
0
Ties
4
pgvector wins
Side by side
How they compare, dimension by dimension.
Dimension
Pinecone
pgvector
Setup time
Minutes (managed)
Hours (if no Postgres)
Cost at 1M vectors
$70+/mo
Marginal cost to existing Postgres
Cost at 100M vectors
Scales reasonably
Requires careful tuning
Metadata filtering
Strong
Native SQL joins
Hybrid search
Recent addition
Mature with full SQL
Maintenance burden
Zero (managed)
Standard Postgres ops
Vendor lock-in
Pinecone-specific API
Standard SQL
/ Pick Pinecone when
- No existing Postgres infrastructure
- 50M+ vectors expected at scale
- Zero-ops requirement
- Multi-region low-latency needed
/ Pick pgvector when
- You already use Postgres
- Under 10M vectors
- You want ACID transactions with vectors
- Cost-sensitive early stage
Our take
Most of our engagements start on pgvector because clients already run Postgres. We migrate to Pinecone or Weaviate when scale demands. Single-vendor lock on vector storage is rare.
/ Next step
Still not sure which to pick?
A 30-minute call with our team is often faster than more research. Let's talk through your specific context.
~4h
avg response
Q2 '26
next slot
100%
NDA on request