pgvector

What Is pgvector?

pgvector turns PostgreSQL into a vector database — no additional infrastructure needed. Store embeddings alongside your regular data, run similarity searches with SQL, and benefit from PostgreSQL reliability, ACID compliance, and your existing backup/monitoring setup.

Key features: ivfflat and HNSW indexes for fast approximate nearest neighbor search, support for L2, inner product, and cosine distance, seamless integration with existing PostgreSQL queries, and the ability to filter results using standard SQL WHERE clauses.

pgvector vs Pinecone: pgvector is free, self-hosted, and integrates with your existing database. Pinecone is managed, scales automatically, but costs $70-700+/month. For most applications under 10 million vectors, pgvector is the better choice.