At a glance
| Product type | Managed vector database service (SaaS or BYOC) built on open source Milvus |
| Vector index types | AUTOINDEX: customised HNSW (performance-optimized) or DiskANN (capacity-optimized) |
| Hybrid search | Yes: multi-vector hybrid search, including sparse-dense combinations |
| Metadata filtering | Yes: scalar and JSON field filtering with scalar indexes |
| Embedding integration | Not verified on the pages checked |
| Scaling and multitenancy | Serverless or CU-sized dedicated clusters; tenancy by database (Dedicated only), collection, partition or partition key |
| Deployment (managed or self-hosted) | Managed on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure, or BYOC in your account |
| Licensing and pricing model | Commercial; Free plan, Serverless $4 per million vCUs, Dedicated from $126 a month |
Zilliz Cloud suits teams that want Milvus without running Milvus: the provider handles clusters and indexing through AUTOINDEX. Serverless pricing at $4 per million vCUs and published dedicated starting prices make early estimates possible, but Business Critical and BYOC are quote-only. If you need to self-host, use open source Milvus instead.
Overview
Zilliz Cloud is a managed vector database service operated by Zilliz, the company that is the major contributor to the open source Milvus project. It is built on Milvus, so it shares Milvus concepts such as collections, partitions and scalar filtering, but it is a separate commercial product: you do not install anything, and features such as the Cardinal search engine, tiered storage and the SLAs are part of the paid service. It runs on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, or inside your own cloud account with BYOC.
Unlike self-hosted Milvus, where you pick from many index types, Zilliz Cloud uses AUTOINDEX for vector fields; its documentation describes this as a customised HNSW on performance-optimized clusters and a customised DiskANN on capacity-optimized clusters, powered by the Cardinal engine. Plans range from a Free cluster and usage-billed Serverless clusters to Dedicated clusters on Standard and Enterprise, and Business Critical (99.99% SLA with multi-replica, CMEK, HIPAA eligible) for regulated workloads.
Key features
- Managed Milvus: clusters, upgrades and indexing operated by Zilliz
- AUTOINDEX vector indexing (customised HNSW or DiskANN by cluster type) powered by the Cardinal search engine
- Serverless clusters billed per vCU, plus Dedicated clusters in performance-optimized, capacity-optimized and tiered-storage types
- Hybrid search across multiple vector fields, including sparse-dense and dense-text combinations
- Enterprise features: 99.95% SLA, SSO, RBAC, audit logs and multi-replica clusters
- Business Critical plan with 99.99% SLA, global clusters, customer-managed keys (CMEK) and HIPAA eligibility
- BYOC deployment into your own AWS, Google Cloud or Azure account
Integrations and ecosystem
Pros and cons
Pros
- Runs the Milvus engine without the operations work of a distributed Milvus cluster
- Published serverless unit price and dedicated starting prices, plus a free cluster
- Tiered-storage and capacity-optimized clusters for large, colder collections
- Choice of three major clouds or BYOC
- Four documented multi-tenancy strategies, with partition-key tenancy scaling to millions of tenants
Cons
- Free clusters are suspended after 7 days of inactivity and limited to 5 GB and 5 collections
- Vector index choice is reduced to AUTOINDEX, unlike self-hosted Milvus
- Business Critical, On-demand Compute and BYOC are quote-only
- If the free trial ends without a payment method, Serverless and Dedicated clusters go to the recycle bin and are deleted after 30 days
Pricing
Zilliz Cloud has a Free plan: one free cluster per organisation with 5 GB storage, 2.5M vCUs a month and up to 5 collections, suspended after 7 consecutive days of inactivity (it can be resumed). Serverless clusters on the Standard plan start from $0 a month and are billed at $4 per million vCUs for reads and writes, with storage charged separately by region. Dedicated clusters start from $126 a month on Standard and $197 a month on Enterprise (99.95% uptime SLA, SSO, audit logs); dedicated capacity is quoted per million vectors per month from $63 (performance-optimized), $16 (capacity-optimized) and $5 (tiered storage), based on 768-dimension vectors. Business Critical, On-demand Compute and BYOC are priced by sales. New sign-ups with a work email get $100 of credits for 30 days, and adding a payment method adds another $100 and extends expiry to one year.
Pricing checked on the vendor's official page on 7 November 2026. Prices change; confirm before buying.
Who it is best for
Teams that have chosen Milvus as their vector engine, or want its scale, but prefer a managed service with SLAs over operating Kubernetes clusters.
Typical use cases
- Production RAG and semantic search on a managed Milvus engine
- Very large, cost-sensitive vector collections on tiered-storage clusters
- Regulated workloads that need CMEK, audit logs or HIPAA eligibility
- Moving a self-hosted Milvus prototype to a managed service
Who should look elsewhere
- Teams that must self-host on their own hardware: run open source Milvus directly.
- Small projects that only need a few thousand vectors next to relational data, where pgvector is simpler.
Verdict
Zilliz Cloud is the natural managed home for Milvus workloads, with serverless and dedicated options, published starting prices and BYOC. Buyers give up Milvus's full index menu for AUTOINDEX and should confirm Business Critical or BYOC pricing with sales, but in return avoid operating a distributed vector database.
Frequently asked questions
Is Zilliz Cloud the same as Milvus?
No. Milvus is the Apache 2.0 open source project you run yourself. Zilliz Cloud is a commercial managed service from Zilliz built on Milvus, with its own features such as AUTOINDEX with the Cardinal engine, tiered storage and SLAs.
Does Zilliz Cloud have a free tier?
Yes. Each organisation can have one free cluster with 5 GB storage, 2.5M vCUs a month and up to 5 collections. It is suspended after 7 consecutive days of inactivity and can be resumed.
How is Zilliz Cloud Serverless billed?
Reads and writes are billed at $4 per million vCUs, and storage is charged separately depending on region, cluster type and plan.
Which index types can I use on Zilliz Cloud?
Vector fields use AUTOINDEX. The documentation describes it as a customised HNSW on performance-optimized clusters and a customised DiskANN on capacity-optimized clusters.
Sources
- Zilliz Cloud pricing
- Zilliz Cloud product page
- Zilliz Cloud service plans (documentation)
- Serverless cluster cost (documentation)
- Register with Zilliz Cloud (trial credits)
- Zilliz Cloud limits
- AUTOINDEX explained
- Zilliz Cloud multi-tenancy
Checked November 2026.
Listed in: Vector Databases & AI Search.
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