Code & Development (10)

10 free vector databases and RAG infrastructure and 0 more — pricing tier and real capabilities on every entry. No ads, no sponsored placement.

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Qdrant

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freemium
  • Open-source Rust-based vector database, self-hostable for free with no scale limit
  • Managed free tier cluster (0.5 vCPU/1GB RAM/4GB disk) for prototyping RAG apps with no card required for OSS use
  • Hybrid Cloud option to run managed clusters on your own infrastructure for compliance-sensitive RAG
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Weaviate

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freemium
  • Free managed cloud plan (100k objects, 1GB memory, 10GB disk) to explore without self-hosting
  • Open-source core project can be self-hosted for free indefinitely, same engine as the managed cloud
  • Built-in hybrid (vector + keyword) search and native embedding/query-agent integrations
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Chroma

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freemium
  • Fully open-source embedded/self-hosted vector store, the default choice bundled into countless RAG tutorials and frameworks
  • Chroma Cloud managed tier starts with free usage credits, no subscription
  • Simple Python/JS-native API designed to be the easiest on-ramp to RAG for developers
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Microsoft GraphRAG

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freeNew
  • Builds knowledge graphs and community summaries from private text for RAG
  • Answers global, dataset-wide questions that vector RAG misses
  • Open-source Python library and CLI
  • Works with OpenAI-compatible and local models
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Milvus

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freeNew
  • Cloud-native Apache-2.0 vector database for large-scale similarity search
  • Runs from a single-file Lite mode to distributed clusters
  • Managed Zilliz Cloud has a separate free tier
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LanceDB

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freeNew
  • Embedded, developer-friendly retrieval library for multimodal AI
  • Columnar Lance format with vector and full-text search
  • Apache-2.0
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pgvector

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freeNew
  • Open-source vector similarity search extension for Postgres
  • HNSW and IVFFlat indexes with exact and approximate search
  • Available on most managed Postgres hosts
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Pinecone

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freemiumNew
  • Fully managed vector database with a free Starter plan
  • Starter includes about 2 GB storage and monthly read/write units
  • Serverless indexes with integrated inference
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Vespa

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freeNew
  • Open-source AI search platform combining vector, text and structured search
  • Real-time indexing and on-node ML inference
  • Apache-2.0; free to self-host
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txtai

Vector Databases & RAG Infra
freeNew
  • All-in-one embeddings database for semantic search, LLM orchestration and workflows
  • Runs fully local with open models
  • Apache-2.0
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Vector Databases & RAG Infra — straight answers

What are the best free vector databases and RAG infrastructure?

Flocci AI Tools lists 10 vector databases and RAG infrastructure, ordered free tiers first: Vespa, LanceDB, Microsoft GraphRAG, Milvus and pgvector. All of them are free or have a free tier. Every entry states what it uniquely does, not a score.

Are there completely free vector databases and RAG infrastructure?

Yes — 6 of these are marked fully free with no paid plan attached: Vespa, LanceDB, Microsoft GraphRAG, Milvus and pgvector. The rest are freemium, trial or paid, and each row states which.

What should I look for in vector databases and RAG infrastructure?

Start with what you need to do: store embeddings and retrieve them for a RAG app. Then check the pricing tier, because "free" here means no paid plan at all while "freemium" means a free tier under paid plans. Every tool on this page lists both.

See the full list →

Head-to-head comparisons

LanceDB vs VespaMicrosoft GraphRAG vs VespaMilvus vs Vespapgvector vs Vespatxtai vs VespaLanceDB vs Microsoft GraphRAGLanceDB vs MilvusLanceDB vs pgvector

Free alternatives

Qdrant alternativesWeaviate alternativesChroma alternativesMicrosoft GraphRAG alternativesMilvus alternativesLanceDB alternativespgvector alternativesPinecone alternatives

Looking for a ranked shortlist instead? See the best free vector databases and RAG infrastructure.