vs

Milvus vs Vald

Milvus: Cloud-native, distributed open-source vector database built for billions of vectors. Vald: Kubernetes-native distributed vector search engine built on Yahoo Japan's NGT.

key differences

  • Milvus is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Vald (≤ 1 PB).
  • Only Milvus has secondary indexes, full-text search, json, change data capture, ttl / expiry.
  • Milvus can run embedded in your application process.

choose milvus for

  • +Billion-scale semantic and image search
  • +RAG platforms serving many teams
  • +Recommendation and deduplication
  • +Multimodal retrieval over lakehouse data

best at · Vector search, RAG, Search

choose vald for

  • +Large-scale image or embedding similarity search on Kubernetes
  • +Recommendation candidate retrieval
  • +Internal ANN services

best at · Vector search

overview
Primary model
Vector
Vector
Also supports
Search Engine, Document
–
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
LF AI & Data Foundation (developed mainly by Zilliz)
LY Corporation (vdaas)
First release
2019
2020
Latest version
3.0.4 (Oct 26, 2026)
1.8.0 (Aug 26, 2026)
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
Free tier
✓
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
45.9
5.6
Rank
#35
#382
GitHub stars
46.5K
1.7K
Stack Overflow questions
208
–
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Massive (Multi-PB)
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
None
None
ACID
None
None
Consistency
Tunable, Strong, Eventual
Eventual
Schema
Strict
Schemaless
Architecture
Distributed, Shared storage, Embedded, Client server
Distributed, Client server
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
—
Serverless
—
—
Embedded
✓
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
–
capabilities
Transactions
—
—
Joins
—
—
Secondary indexes
✓
—
Full-text search
✓
—
Vector search
✓
✓
Geospatial
—
—
JSON
✓
—
Change data capture
✓
—
Triggers
—
—
Stored procedures
—
—
Materialized views
—
—
TTL / expiry
✓
—
Pub/Sub
—
—
Columnar storage
—
—
In-memory
—
—
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
✓
—
Encryption at rest
—
—
Role-based access
✓
—
Time travel
—
—
Branching
—
—
Online schema changes
✓
—
Streaming ingest
✓
—
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
Milvus API (boolean filter expressions)
Vald gRPC API
Client languages
Python, Java, Go, Node.js, C#, Rust
Go, Java, Python, Node.js
Best for
Vector search, RAG, Search
Vector search

Milvus vs Vald: FAQ

What is the difference between Milvus and Vald?

Milvus: Cloud-native, distributed open-source vector database built for billions of vectors. Vald: Kubernetes-native distributed vector search engine built on Yahoo Japan's NGT. Milvus is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Vald (≤ 1 PB). Only Milvus has secondary indexes, full-text search, json, change data capture, ttl / expiry. Milvus can run embedded in your application process.

When should I choose Milvus over Vald?

Choose Milvus for billion-scale semantic and image search; RAG platforms serving many teams; and recommendation and deduplication. Choose Vald for large-scale image or embedding similarity search on Kubernetes, recommendation candidate retrieval and internal ANN services.

Is Milvus or Vald more popular?

Milvus ranks #35 on the WhichDB Score (45.9/100) and Vald ranks #382 (5.6/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Milvus and Vald open source?

Yes. Milvus is open source. License: Apache License 2.0. Yes. Vald is open source. License: Apache License 2.0.