What it is
Pinecone is a fully managed vector database. You store embeddings with metadata and query them by similarity, with hybrid search that combines dense vectors, sparse vectors and BM25 full-text ranking in one index, plus metadata filters and namespaces. It also hosts embedding and reranking models, an Assistant product for chat and RAG apps, and Nexus, a knowledge engine for agents. It runs on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, or in your own cloud account.
The free Starter plan covers 5 indexes and 2 GB of storage on AWS in one region. Builder costs $20 a month flat; Standard has a $50 monthly minimum and then usage-based pricing for storage, reads and writes. It is closed source and cloud only, unlike self-hosted options such as pgvector or Qdrant.
Best for
- Adding semantic search or RAG to an app without running a database
- Multitenant apps that keep each customer's data in a namespace
- Teams that need SSO, backups and an uptime SLA