# Pinecone vs Weaviate

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/pinecone-vs-weaviate/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Pinecone | Weaviate |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | Builder plan: $20/month flat, for solo developers and small teams. Standard plan is usage-based with a $50/month minimum. | Flex tier starts at $45/month, pay-as-you-go, no commitment. |
| Pricing model | Usage-based on the Standard plan, with a $50/month minimum before pay-as-you-go charges apply. | 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 | Starter plan is limited to us-east-1. Standard and Enterprise plans support all available regions across AWS, Azure and GCP. | 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 — combine a keyword signal (BM25 or sparse) with a dense signal at query time, often with reranking. | Supported across all plans. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Pinecone: Builder plan: $20/month flat, for solo developers and small teams. Standard plan is usage-based with a $50/month minimum. ([source](https://www.pinecone.io/pricing/))
- Weaviate: Flex tier starts at $45/month, pay-as-you-go, no commitment. ([source](https://weaviate.io/pricing))

### Pricing model

- Pinecone: Usage-based on the Standard plan, with a $50/month minimum before pay-as-you-go charges apply. ([source](https://www.pinecone.io/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

- Pinecone: Starter plan is limited to us-east-1. Standard and Enterprise plans support all available regions across AWS, Azure and GCP. ([source](https://www.pinecone.io/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)

- Pinecone: Supported — combine a keyword signal (BM25 or sparse) with a dense signal at query time, often with reranking. ([source](https://docs.pinecone.io/guides/indexes/understanding-indexes))
- Weaviate: Supported across all plans. ([source](https://weaviate.io/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Pinecone if Teams that want a fully managed vector search product with hybrid search and metadata filtering built in, and don't want to operate the underlying index themselves.

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: Pinecone — Cost predictability at small scale matters more than managed convenience — the $50/month Standard minimum applies before any pay-as-you-go usage starts.

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

- Metadata filtering: Pinecone: Supported — Pinecone indexes metadata so a query can include a metadata filter to limit the search.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Pinecone or Weaviate?**

Pinecone: Builder plan: $20/month flat, for solo developers and small teams. Standard plan is usage-based with a $50/month minimum.
Weaviate: Flex tier starts at $45/month, pay-as-you-go, no commitment.

**Should I choose Pinecone or Weaviate?**

Pick Pinecone if Teams that want a fully managed vector search product with hybrid search and metadata filtering built in, and don't want to operate the underlying index themselves.
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.