server
Open source
free (OSS) + Zilliz Cloud

Milvus

Distributed vector database designed for billion-scale workloads. Compute-storage separation, GPU-accelerated index builds, multi-tenant from the ground up. The pick when you've outgrown Qdrant single-node.

By Eruo Fredoline·Last verified Oct 7, 2026·30,000 GitHub stars

Overview

Distributed vector database designed for billion-scale workloads. Compute-storage separation, GPU-accelerated index builds, multi-tenant from the ground up. The pick when you've outgrown Qdrant single-node.

Stack & relationships

How Milvus relates to other entries in the catalog — recommended pairings, alternatives, dependencies, and edges to avoid. Each edge carries a one-line operator note from our editorial team.

Milvus ↔ ecosystem

Works with

  • Works with
    AnythingLLM

    Production-scale vector store. Wire it when you're past the LanceDB scaling ceiling.

Alternatives

  • Competes with
    Qdrant

    Qdrant is single-node-friendly and fast to deploy; Milvus is the heavy-duty distributed option for the 100M+ vector scale.

  • Alternative to
    Qdrant

    Milvus targets 100M+ vector scale with distributed deployment; Qdrant is single-node-friendly. Switch from Qdrant to Milvus only when you've outgrown single-node.

Pros

  • Genuinely scales to 10B+ vectors
  • GPU index acceleration
  • Multi-tenancy built in

Cons

  • Operationally heavy — Kubernetes recommended
  • Overkill for under 100M vectors

Compatibility

Operating systems
Linux
Docker
Kubernetes
GPU backends
NVIDIA CUDA (optional acceleration)
LicenseOpen source · free (OSS) + Zilliz Cloud

Runtime health

Operator-grade signals on how actively Milvus is being maintained, how fresh its measurements are, and what failure classes operators have flagged. Every label below is anchored to a real date or count — we never infer maintainer activity we can't show.

Release cadence

Derived from the most recent editorial signal on this row.

Active
Updated Oct 7, 2026

6 days since last refresh · source: lastUpdated

Benchmark freshness

How recent the editorial measurements on this runtime are.

0editorial benchmarks

No editorial benchmarks for this runtime yet.

Community reproduction

Submissions that match an editorial measurement on similar hardware.

0reproduced reports

No community reproductions on file yet.

Get Milvus

Official site
https://milvus.io
GitHub
https://github.com/milvus-io/milvus

Frequently asked

Is Milvus free?

Yes — Milvus is free to use and open-source.

What operating systems does Milvus support?

Milvus supports Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.

Which GPUs work with Milvus?

Milvus supports NVIDIA CUDA (optional acceleration). CPU-only operation is also possible but typically slower.

Reviewed by RunLocalAI Editorial. See our editorial policy for how we evaluate tools.

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Before you buy

Verify Milvus runs on your specific hardware before committing money.

Will it run on my hardware? →Custom hardware comparison →GPU recommender (4 questions) →