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Elastic Cloud vs Qdrant

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Elastic Cloud and Qdrant built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 30 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose Elastic Cloud if…

Teams that need full-text search and observability on the same underlying engine, or that want the option to self-host later — Elastic's dual identity as a search platform and an observability platform is the actual differentiator against single-purpose competitors.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Qdrant if…

Teams that want a choice of similarity metric rather than one fixed default, or that want the option to self-host the same open-source engine the managed cloud runs.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • Elastic Cloud: The need is narrowly error tracking or APM — a purpose-built tool is usually simpler to operate than standing up an Elasticsearch cluster for one workload, and Elastic Cloud's per-resource pricing doesn't publish a flat entry price the way single-purpose competitors do.
  • Qdrant: A published, calculator-free entry price matters — Qdrant Cloud's Standard tier pricing is usage-based with no static per-month figure quoted, unlike some competitors' flat entry plans.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Elastic Cloud alternatives · Qdrant alternatives

16 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Elastic Cloud documentationVisit Qdrant documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionElastic CloudQdrant
Pricing
Free tier
No — The only free offer here is a trial; no ongoing free tier is listed beside the Hosted and Serverless plans.
Yes
Kind of free offerFree trial — The only free offer here is a trial; no ongoing free tier is listed beside the Hosted and Serverless plans.Always free
Entry paid planElastic Cloud Hosted Standard, cheapest of four subscription tiers: as low as $99 per month for a production config of 120 GB storage across 2 zones. Gold $114, Platinum $131, Enterprise $184 per month on the same config basis. Serverless is metered, no plan fee.Smallest paid Managed Cloud cluster (1 node, 0.5 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM, 8 GiB disk) on AWS us-east-1: $0.03566/hour, about $26.10/month, per Qdrant's own Cloud pricing calculator. Calculator estimate for AWS us-east-1; VAT excluded and expressly not a binding offer.
Pricing modelThree deployment options priced differently: Hosted is resource-based, Serverless is usage-based — both pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid — and Self-managed is licensed by node count and RAM.Usage-based on the Standard tier: billed for compute (vCPU), memory (GB) and storage (GB) consumed by clusters, backup storage, and inference tokens for paid models.
Infrastructure
RegionsHosted: 60 regions across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud (also Alibaba Cloud and FedRAMP). Serverless: generally available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.Standard and Premium tiers run on AWS, Azure and GCP.
Uptime SLA
99.95% monthly, for the Platinum and Enterprise subscription tiers, on both Hosted and Serverless. Not applicable to self-managed, where the customer operates the infrastructure.
99.5% on the paid cloud tier; 99.9% on Premium.
Vector
Hybrid search (vector + keyword)Supported — combines vector similarity scores with BM25F text-relevance scores in a single hybrid query.Native hybrid queries combine dense semantic and sparse lexical (BM25) vectors in a single query
Metadata filteringSupported — vector search results can be filtered by metadata while preserving approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search speed.Supported: conditions can be set on the payload and on the point id, combined with AND, OR and NOT clauses that nest arbitrarily.
Compliance
SOC 2SOC 2 Type 2 audit by Coalfire covers Elasticsearch Service and support subscriptions; report available on request via the Trust Center.SOC 2 Type 2 certified; compliance reports available on request through the Qdrant Trust Center.
HIPAAHIPAA business associate agreements available on all Elastic Cloud subscription tiers on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.HIPAA certified; a Business Associate Agreement is available for Qdrant Managed Cloud.
GDPR / data residencyOperates in compliance with GDPR principles; customers can request a Data Processing Addendum through a support case.DPA offered for GDPR; cluster data is stored only in the cluster's deployment region.
Encryption at restCluster data is encrypted at rest by default; TLS between Elasticsearch nodes and from the internet.All storage volumes in Qdrant Managed Cloud are encrypted at rest; data in transit is protected with TLS.
Customer-managed keysSupported on Elastic Cloud Hosted via your cloud provider KMS, but only at the Enterprise subscription level; the key cannot yet be changed or removed once set.Premium tier customers can bring their own encryption keys for storage volumes.
Role-based access controlPredefined cloud resource roles (Admin, Editor, Viewer, billing admin) for Hosted and Serverless; custom roles can be created on Serverless projects.Built-in RBAC in the Qdrant Cloud Management Console, with permissions manageable at collection level.
Private networking / VPCAWS PrivateLink and Azure Private Link for Hosted and Serverless; GCP Private Service Connect for Hosted only. IP filtering can be combined with private connections.Private link connectivity from a Managed Cloud cluster to your VPC, available to Premium tier customers only.
Dedicated infrastructure
Elasticsearch nodes run in isolated containers under least privilege; containers have no means of communicating with containers from another cluster. Scope: container-level isolation between customer clusters; no dedicated-hardware option is offered on this page.
Paid Managed Cloud clusters run on their own dedicated resources, isolated in hardened, unprivileged containers.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Free tier

Elastic Cloud
No — The only free offer here is a trial; no ongoing free tier is listed beside the Hosted and Serverless plans.
Qdrant
Yes
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic Cloud Pricing ↗

    “Elastic Cloud Serverless Zero operational load so that you can build faster Start free trial Elastic Cloud Hosted Deploy and scale on any cloud in minutes with ultimate control Start free trial”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Qdrant Pricing ↗

    “The free tier includes 1GB RAM and 4GB disk storage, upgrading will get you a dedicated cluster.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Kind of free offer

Elastic Cloud
Free trial — The only free offer here is a trial; no ongoing free tier is listed beside the Hosted and Serverless plans.
Qdrant
Always free
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic Cloud Pricing ↗

    “Elastic Cloud Serverless Zero operational load so that you can build faster Start free trial Elastic Cloud Hosted Deploy and scale on any cloud in minutes with ultimate control Start free trial”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Qdrant Pricing ↗

    “Free Tier Free forever For testing, and prototypes Single Node Cluster 0.5 vCPU / 1GB RAM/ 4 GB Disk. Free Cloud Inference With Selected Models Start Free”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

Entry paid plan

Elastic Cloud
Elastic Cloud Hosted Standard, cheapest of four subscription tiers: as low as $99 per month for a production config of 120 GB storage across 2 zones. Gold $114, Platinum $131, Enterprise $184 per month on the same config basis. Serverless is metered, no plan fee.
Qdrant
Smallest paid Managed Cloud cluster (1 node, 0.5 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM, 8 GiB disk) on AWS us-east-1: $0.03566/hour, about $26.10/month, per Qdrant's own Cloud pricing calculator. Calculator estimate for AWS us-east-1; VAT excluded and expressly not a binding offer.
Sources (2) →

Pricing model

Elastic Cloud
Three deployment options priced differently: Hosted is resource-based, Serverless is usage-based — both pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid — and Self-managed is licensed by node count and RAM.
Qdrant
Usage-based on the Standard tier: billed for compute (vCPU), memory (GB) and storage (GB) consumed by clusters, backup storage, and inference tokens for paid models.
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic Cloud Pricing ↗

    “Pricing Resource based pricing Pay as you go (monthly) or prepaid Usage based pricing Pay as you go (monthly) or prepaid License-based pricing Licensing based on number of nodes and used RAM”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Qdrant Cloud Pricing ↗

    “Billing is calculated based on actual resource usage during the billing period. You're charged for compute (vCPU), memory (GB), storage (GB) consumed by your clusters, storage (GB) consumed by backups, and used inference tokens of paid models.”

    Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing · Report a correction

Regions

Elastic Cloud
Hosted: 60 regions across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud (also Alibaba Cloud and FedRAMP). Serverless: generally available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.
Qdrant
Standard and Premium tiers run on AWS, Azure and GCP.
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic Cloud Pricing ↗

    “AWS, GCP, Azure, Alibaba, FedRamp — 60 regions across AWS, Azure, and GCP. Serverless currently generally available in AWS, GCP, and Azure.”

    Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Qdrant Pricing ↗

    “Cloud Providers Depends on chosen infrastructure AWS, Azure, GCP AWS, Azure, GCP AWS, Azure, GCP Uptime SLA 99.5 Single AZ: 99.9, Multi AZ: 99.95”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

Uptime SLA

Elastic Cloud
99.95% monthly, for the Platinum and Enterprise subscription tiers, on both Hosted and Serverless. Not applicable to self-managed, where the customer operates the infrastructure.
Qdrant
99.5% on the paid cloud tier; 99.9% on Premium.
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic Cloud Pricing ↗

    “uptime sla 99.95% monthly uptime sla for platinum and enterprise subscription tiers see elastic cloud hosted sla for more details”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Qdrant Pricing ↗

    “free tokens for paid inference models 99.5% uptime SLA [...] SSO private VPC links 99.9% uptime SLA extra support talk to our engineers”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

Metadata filtering

Elastic Cloud
Supported — vector search results can be filtered by metadata while preserving approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search speed.
Qdrant
Supported: conditions can be set on the payload and on the point id, combined with AND, OR and NOT clauses that nest arbitrarily.
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic: What is vector search? ↗

    “Filter vector search results using metadata. Maintain recall without sacrificing speed by applying a filter in line with approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search.”

    Read 2026-09-11 · official site · Report a correction

  • Filtering — Qdrant Docs ↗

    “With Qdrant, you can set conditions when searching or retrieving points. For example, you can impose conditions on both the payload and the id of the point. [...] Qdrant allows you to combine conditions in clauses. Clauses are different logical operations, such as OR, AND, and NOT. Clauses can be recursively nested into each other so that you can reproduce an arbitrary boolean expression.”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction

SOC 2

Elastic Cloud
SOC 2 Type 2 audit by Coalfire covers Elasticsearch Service and support subscriptions; report available on request via the Trust Center.
Qdrant
SOC 2 Type 2 certified; compliance reports available on request through the Qdrant Trust Center.
Sources (2) →

HIPAA

Elastic Cloud
HIPAA business associate agreements available on all Elastic Cloud subscription tiers on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Qdrant
HIPAA certified; a Business Associate Agreement is available for Qdrant Managed Cloud.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

Elastic Cloud
Operates in compliance with GDPR principles; customers can request a Data Processing Addendum through a support case.
Qdrant
DPA offered for GDPR; cluster data is stored only in the cluster's deployment region.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

Elastic Cloud
Cluster data is encrypted at rest by default; TLS between Elasticsearch nodes and from the internet.
Qdrant
All storage volumes in Qdrant Managed Cloud are encrypted at rest; data in transit is protected with TLS.
Sources (2) →

Customer-managed keys

Elastic Cloud
Supported on Elastic Cloud Hosted via your cloud provider KMS, but only at the Enterprise subscription level; the key cannot yet be changed or removed once set.
Qdrant
Premium tier customers can bring their own encryption keys for storage volumes.
Sources (2) →

Role-based access control

Elastic Cloud
Predefined cloud resource roles (Admin, Editor, Viewer, billing admin) for Hosted and Serverless; custom roles can be created on Serverless projects.
Qdrant
Built-in RBAC in the Qdrant Cloud Management Console, with permissions manageable at collection level.
Sources (2) →

Private networking / VPC

Elastic Cloud
AWS PrivateLink and Azure Private Link for Hosted and Serverless; GCP Private Service Connect for Hosted only. IP filtering can be combined with private connections.
Qdrant
Private link connectivity from a Managed Cloud cluster to your VPC, available to Premium tier customers only.
Sources (2) →

Dedicated infrastructure

Elastic Cloud
Elasticsearch nodes run in isolated containers under least privilege; containers have no means of communicating with containers from another cluster. Scope: container-level isolation between customer clusters; no dedicated-hardware option is offered on this page.
Qdrant
Paid Managed Cloud clusters run on their own dedicated resources, isolated in hardened, unprivileged containers.
Sources (2) →

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

Documented by only one.

These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

What the free plan includesQdrant: A single-node cluster with 1 GB RAM and 4 GB disk, free forever, without high availability.
Credit card to startElastic Cloud: No
When the free offer endsQdrant: Never — the free cluster is free forever.
Retention windowElastic Cloud: No fixed window on Serverless: retention is priced per GB retained per month, as low as $0.017 (Logs Essentials) or $0.019 (Complete), and $0.005 for metrics.
Self-hostableElastic Cloud: Supported
Ingest price per GBElastic Cloud: As low as $0.07 per GB ingested (logs, traces, RUM) on Serverless Observability Logs Essentials; as low as $0.09 on Observability Complete, with metrics at $0.023.
Query priceElastic Cloud: No separate query meter on Serverless Observability: billing is ingest plus retention only, with egress 50 GB free then $0.05 per GB.
Audit logsQdrant: Audit logging, available on paid clusters, captures operations performed through the Qdrant API, including user and API key attribution, timestamp, target collection, and result of the action.Elastic Cloud: not stated on its own page when read on 2026-09-22 — corrections welcome · every such claim about Elastic Cloud.
Max vector dimensionsQdrant: Up to 65,535 dimensions for dense vectors
Similarity metrics supportedQdrant: Dot product, Cosine similarity (implemented as dot-product over automatically normalized vectors), Euclidean distance and Manhattan distance.
Support on entry paid planElastic Cloud: Four support tiers, keyed to the Elastic Cloud subscription tier rather than bought separately. Platinum and Enterprise share an identical support SLA.
Response time commitmentQdrant: Published as best effort, 10x5 and 24x7. The comparison table prints three response values against four support levels, so which tier gets which cannot be read off this page.
ISO 27001Elastic Cloud: Information Security Program certified on ISO 27001, including ISO 27017 and ISO 27018.
PCI DSSElastic Cloud: PCI DSS listed among the certifications in the Elastic Trust Center, alongside SOC 2, ISO 27001 and FedRAMP.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Elastic Cloud or Qdrant?

Elastic Cloud: Elastic Cloud Hosted Standard, cheapest of four subscription tiers: as low as $99 per month for a production config of 120 GB storage across 2 zones. Gold $114, Platinum $131, Enterprise $184 per month on the same config basis. Serverless is metered, no plan fee.

Qdrant: Smallest paid Managed Cloud cluster (1 node, 0.5 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM, 8 GiB disk) on AWS us-east-1: $0.03566/hour, about $26.10/month, per Qdrant's own Cloud pricing calculator. Calculator estimate for AWS us-east-1; VAT excluded and expressly not a binding offer.

Free tier: Elastic Cloud or Qdrant?

Elastic Cloud: No — The only free offer here is a trial; no ongoing free tier is listed beside the Hosted and Serverless plans.

Qdrant: Yes

Should I choose Elastic Cloud or Qdrant?

Pick Elastic Cloud if Teams that need full-text search and observability on the same underlying engine, or that want the option to self-host later — Elastic's dual identity as a search platform and an observability platform is the actual differentiator against single-purpose competitors.

Pick Qdrant if Teams that want a choice of similarity metric rather than one fixed default, or that want the option to self-host the same open-source engine the managed cloud runs.

Provider pages

Elastic CloudManaged Elasticsearch, Kibana and Elastic Observability, hosted or serverless across AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.QdrantOpen-source vector database with a free-forever cloud tier and four selectable similarity metrics.

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Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.