turbopuffer vs Zilliz Cloud

Side by side

turbopuffer vs Zilliz Cloud: value, access facts, plan limits and bottom lines

Metric	turbopuffer	Zilliz Cloud
What you're paying for	Worth the priceVector and full-text search billed by the bytes you store, write and query, with every database feature on the $16 plan.	Saves engineering timeManaged Milvus with a serverless option billed per request, free bulk import from object storage, and the Apache 2.0 engine as a way out.
Overall score	5.6	7.2Best
Free option	Paid only	Free plan
Card to start	–Not measured	No card needed
Getting access	Self-serve	Self-serve
Starter priceCheapest paid plan	$16/mo minimum	$4/million vCUs
Pricing model	Usage-based	Usage-based
Pricing page	Public prices	Public prices
Billing unit	GB stored, GB written, PB queried and GB returned	Serverless: vCUs and GB-month; Dedicated: CU-hours and GB-month
Free option	None; refund if cancelled within 30 days (sign-up page)	Free 5 GB cluster, no card; $100 trial credits for 30 days
Reference scenario (1M vectors, 1M queries)	$30/mo on launch, computed	$113.28/mo on Serverless (GCP us-west1), computed
Plan minimum	launch $16; scale $256; enterprise from $4,096 a month	None
Hybrid search	Every plan (BM25 plus vector, rank fusion)	Every plan (BM25 full-text plus vector)
Backups	Manual namespace copies and branches; no automated backups	Dedicated clusters; point-in-time recovery on Business Critical
SOC 2 / ISO 27001	SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001 not stated	SOC 2 Type II (under NDA) and ISO 27001:2022
HIPAA BAA	scale and enterprise	Business Critical, through sales
EU regions	AWS Frankfurt, Ireland and London; GCP Frankfurt and Belgium	Serverless in AWS Frankfurt; Dedicated in AWS, GCP and Azure EU regions
SSO	scale and enterprise, enabled on request	SAML or OIDC on Enterprise and up
BYOC	enterprise	Through sales, annual commitment
Data export	Paged query API (JSON)	SDK iterators; backup file export in private preview
Self-host path	None	Milvus (Apache 2.0), same SDKs
Bottom line	From its public pages, turbopuffer is the lowest-cost option for our scenario, with every database feature from a $16 minimum. It has no free tier, no automated backups and no open-source engine, and some pricing details differ between pages.	From its public pages, Zilliz Cloud is managed Milvus with per-request serverless billing, free bulk import, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, and an open-source exit. Serverless runs in two regions only, and several prices differ between its pages.

Evidence: turbopuffer: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Zilliz Cloud: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.

When to pick each

In the words of each review, with the date its facts were checked.

Entry price

Baseline: each product's cheapest paid plan, per month. Included usage differs, so read the line under each price.

Which one fits

If you need to start today without a sales call

Zilliz CloudSelf-serve sign-up, no card needed; the highest score of the 2 self-serve products here (7.2/10).

If you want to try it without entering a card

Zilliz CloudFree plan, no card needed; scored 7.2/10.

Lowest starter price

turbopuffer$16/mo minimum for the launch plan. Zilliz Cloud lists no comparable paid price.

Highest overall score

Zilliz Cloud7.2/10 (Good). The review shows the score breakdown and the run behind it.

Picked by fixed rules from the table above, not by hand. How we score

Full reviews

• turbopuffer review: plans, prices and access facts
• Zilliz Cloud review: plans, prices and access facts

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