# Turbopuffer vs Weaviate

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Turbopuffer | Weaviate |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Entry paid plan | Launch plan: $16/month minimum usage, including all database features. Scale plan: $256/month minimum. Enterprise: $4,096+/month. | Flex tier starts at $45/month, pay-as-you-go, no commitment. |
| Pricing model | Subscription with a monthly minimum per tier, plus usage-based overage charges beyond that minimum. | Consumption-based, charged on total vector dimensions stored plus storage, backups and optional AI services. Flex pricing starts around $0.00465 per 1M dimensions. |
| Hybrid search (vector + keyword) | Supported — combines vector search and BM25 full-text search to produce semantically relevant results. | Supported across all plans. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Turbopuffer: Launch plan: $16/month minimum usage, including all database features. Scale plan: $256/month minimum. Enterprise: $4,096+/month. ([source](https://turbopuffer.com/pricing))
- Weaviate: Flex tier starts at $45/month, pay-as-you-go, no commitment. ([source](https://weaviate.io/pricing))

### Pricing model

- Turbopuffer: Subscription with a monthly minimum per tier, plus usage-based overage charges beyond that minimum. ([source](https://turbopuffer.com/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))

### Hybrid search (vector + keyword)

- Turbopuffer: Supported — combines vector search and BM25 full-text search to produce semantically relevant results. ([source](https://turbopuffer.com/docs/hybrid-search))
- Weaviate: Supported across all plans. ([source](https://weaviate.io/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Turbopuffer if Teams that want vector search billed like storage rather than compute — object-storage-backed pricing tends to undercut memory-resident vector databases at rest, especially for large, cold datasets.

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: Turbopuffer — The full list of supported similarity metrics matters before committing — that wasn't fully documented in what's sourced here, unlike competitors that publish the complete list.

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

- Free tier: Weaviate: Yes
- Regions: 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.
- Similarity metrics supported: Turbopuffer: Cosine distance is documented as a supported metric (used in the SDK's example code); the full list of supported metrics wasn't confirmed beyond this.

## Questions this comparison answers

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

Turbopuffer: Launch plan: $16/month minimum usage, including all database features. Scale plan: $256/month minimum. Enterprise: $4,096+/month.
Weaviate: Flex tier starts at $45/month, pay-as-you-go, no commitment.

**Should I choose Turbopuffer or Weaviate?**

Pick Turbopuffer if Teams that want vector search billed like storage rather than compute — object-storage-backed pricing tends to undercut memory-resident vector databases at rest, especially for large, cold datasets.
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.