# Elastic Cloud vs Weaviate

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/elastic-cloud-vs-weaviate/

Every value below is read from Elastic Cloud's and Weaviate's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Elastic Cloud | Weaviate |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Pricing model | Hosted: resource-based pricing, pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid. Serverless: usage-based pricing, pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid. | Consumption-based, charged on total vector dimensions stored plus storage, backups and optional AI services. Flex pricing starts around $0.00465 per 1M dimensions. |
| Regions | Hosted: 60 regions across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud (also Alibaba Cloud and FedRAMP). Serverless: generally available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure. | Free and Flex tiers run on AWS and GCP with limited regions (2 and 7 respectively). Premium dedicated runs on GCP, AWS and Azure across roughly 40 regions. |
| Hybrid search (vector + keyword) | Supported — combines vector similarity scores with BM25F text-relevance scores in a single hybrid query. | Supported across all plans. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Elastic Cloud: No ([source](https://www.elastic.co/pricing))
- Weaviate: Yes ([source](https://weaviate.io/pricing))

### Pricing model

- Elastic Cloud: Hosted: resource-based pricing, pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid. Serverless: usage-based pricing, pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid. ([source](https://www.elastic.co/pricing))
- Weaviate: Consumption-based, charged on total vector dimensions stored plus storage, backups and optional AI services. Flex pricing starts around $0.00465 per 1M dimensions. ([source](https://weaviate.io/pricing))

### 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. ([source](https://www.elastic.co/pricing))
- Weaviate: Free and Flex tiers run on AWS and GCP with limited regions (2 and 7 respectively). Premium dedicated runs on GCP, AWS and Azure across roughly 40 regions. ([source](https://weaviate.io/pricing))

### Hybrid search (vector + keyword)

- Elastic Cloud: Supported — combines vector similarity scores with BM25F text-relevance scores in a single hybrid query. ([source](https://www.elastic.co/what-is/vector-search))
- Weaviate: Supported across all plans. ([source](https://weaviate.io/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

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 Weaviate if Teams that want hybrid search included on every tier without an add-on, or that want an always-free cluster (not a time-limited trial) to build against before committing to a paid plan.

Consider something else: 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.

Consider something else: Weaviate — Predictable flat pricing matters more than granular control — per-dimension consumption billing means cost scales with embedding choices in a way a flat per-month plan doesn't.

## Documented by only one

- Entry paid plan: Weaviate: Flex tier starts at $45/month, pay-as-you-go, no commitment.
- Self-hostable: Elastic Cloud: Supported
- Metadata filtering: Elastic Cloud: Supported — vector search results can be filtered by metadata while preserving approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search speed.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Free tier: Elastic Cloud or Weaviate?**

Elastic Cloud: No
Weaviate: Yes

**Should I choose Elastic Cloud or Weaviate?**

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 Weaviate if Teams that want hybrid search included on every tier without an add-on, or that want an always-free cluster (not a time-limited trial) to build against before committing to a paid plan.