Cloudflare Vectorize
activeby Cloudflare · since 2023 · also known as Vectorize
Globally distributed serverless vector index for Cloudflare Workers and Workers AI.
Overview
Vectorize is Cloudflare's managed vector database, queried from Workers through a binding or over the REST API, and designed to pair with Workers AI embedding models, R2 and D1 for RAG at the edge. Indexes hold up to 20 million vectors of up to 1,536 dimensions with metadata filtering on up to 10 indexed fields and namespaces for tenant isolation. Pricing is based on queried and stored vector dimensions, with a free allowance on the Workers Free plan. It is the obvious choice inside a Cloudflare stack, but limits on index size, topK and dimensions rule it out for large or high-dimensional workloads.
Strengths & trade-offs
Strengths
- +Zero-ops vector search callable directly from Workers
- +Pairs with Workers AI embeddings, R2 and D1 for full RAG on Cloudflare
- +Generous free allowance and dimension-based pricing
- +Namespaces and metadata indexes for multi-tenant filtering
Trade-offs
- −Hard limits: 20M vectors/index, 1,536 dims, topK 100
- −Writes are asynchronous and not immediately queryable
- −No full-text or hybrid search
- −Cloudflare-only
Great for
- +RAG chatbots on Cloudflare Workers
- +Semantic search for edge-hosted sites
- +Per-tenant knowledge bases in Workers apps
Think twice for
- −Indexes beyond 20M vectors
- −High-dimensional embeddings over 1,536 dims
- −Hybrid keyword ranking
Capabilities
Native or official first-party support · 4 of 25 tracked
Scale & consistency
- Comfortable data size
- Medium · ≤ 10 TB
- Horizontal scaling
- Native
- Multi-region
- No
- Transactions
- None
- Consistency
- Eventual
- Schema
- Schemaless
- Architecture
- Serverless, Distributed
- Query languages
- Vectorize Workers binding API, REST API
Up to 20M vectors per index and 50,000 indexes per account on Workers Paid; topK capped at 100 (50 with metadata).
Deployment
available on · Cloudflare
Ecosystem
Alternatives to Cloudflare Vectorize
Fully managed serverless vector database with built-in embedding, reranking and assistants.
cloudflare-vectorize vs pinecone →Serverless vector and full-text search on object storage, priced for billions of documents.
cloudflare-vectorize vs turbopuffer →Vector storage and similarity queries built into S3, trading latency for very low cost at scale.
cloudflare-vectorize vs amazon-s3-vectors →Serverless, per-request-priced Redis with an HTTP API built for edge and serverless functions.
cloudflare-vectorize vs upstash →Dependency-free SQLite extension for vector search that runs anywhere SQLite does, including WASM.
cloudflare-vectorize vs sqlite-vec →Rust vector search engine with rich payload filtering, quantization and a managed cloud.
cloudflare-vectorize vs qdrant →Cloudflare Vectorize FAQ
What is Cloudflare Vectorize?
Cloudflare Vectorize is a vector database by Cloudflare, first released in 2023. Vectorize is Cloudflare's managed vector database, queried from Workers through a binding or over the REST API, and designed to pair with Workers AI embedding models, R2 and D1 for RAG at the edge. Indexes hold up to 20 million vectors of up to 1,536 dimensions with metadata filtering on up to 10 indexed fields and namespaces for tenant isolation. Pricing is based on queried and stored vector dimensions, with a free allowance on the Workers Free plan. It is the obvious choice inside a Cloudflare stack, but limits on index size, topK and dimensions rule it out for large or high-dimensional workloads.
Is Cloudflare Vectorize open source?
No. Cloudflare Vectorize is proprietary, closed-source software.
Does Cloudflare Vectorize support ACID transactions?
No. Cloudflare Vectorize does not provide ACID transactions; its consistency model is eventual.
Does Cloudflare Vectorize scale horizontally?
Cloudflare Vectorize scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at medium scale (≤ 10 TB).
How can I run Cloudflare Vectorize?
You can use the vendor's managed cloud, run it serverless and run it at the edge. Managed offerings include Vectorize. It is available on Cloudflare.
What is Cloudflare Vectorize best for?
Cloudflare Vectorize is a strong fit for RAG chatbots on Cloudflare Workers, semantic search for edge-hosted sites and per-tenant knowledge bases in Workers apps. Think twice for indexes beyond 20M vectors.
What are the best alternatives to Cloudflare Vectorize?
Common alternatives to Cloudflare Vectorize include Pinecone, turbopuffer, Amazon S3 Vectors, Upstash and sqlite-vec. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.
How popular is Cloudflare Vectorize?
Cloudflare Vectorize ranks #645 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (0.4/100), and #29 among vector databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.