Pick Qdrant if
rAG teams who will run OSS or Cloud Free for $0 (1 GB / 4 GB, ~1M × 768-d vectors) and only open Standard when they need dedicated RAM and a 99.5% SLA.
Read the Qdrant pageQdrant vs Zilliz
Our take
Pick Qdrant if rAG teams who will run OSS or Cloud Free for $0 (1 GB / 4 GB, ~1M × 768-d vectors) and only open Standard when they need dedicated RAM and a 99.5% SLA. Pick Zilliz if search teams who will stay on Free at $0 (5 GB) while they create a first cluster, then buy Dedicated from $197 / month when they need the SLA.
Zilliz
Managed Milvus. Free
Best for
Qdrant Store and search embeddings you already made
Zilliz Vector collections you start at $0
Free plan
Qdrant $0 · you host Docker / Kubernetes / Edge
Zilliz $0 · 5 GB storage. “Start for Free.”
Lowest paid
Qdrant Cloud Standard $85/mo
Zilliz Not published by the vendor
Runs where
Qdrant
Zilliz Hosted
Watch out
Qdrant Free Cloud suspends after 1 idle week
Zilliz Free is 5 GB
Last checked
Qdrant 2026-10-22 · qdrant.tech/pricing
Zilliz 2026-10-23 · zilliz.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Zilliz if
search teams who will stay on Free at $0 (5 GB) while they create a first cluster, then buy Dedicated from $197 / month when they need the SLA.
Read the Zilliz page