# Vector databases: what AI models recommend, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Asked as "vector database" and as "vector search database for AI applications", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/it-data/vector-databases/2026-11

**Standing:** Qdrant (tied with pgvector) leads with 34% of first choices; verdict contested. 56 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Qdrant](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/qdrant/index.md) | 34% | 1% | 73 |
| 2 | [pgvector](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/pgvector/index.md) | 34% | 8% | 73 |
| 3 | [Pinecone](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/pinecone/index.md) | 21% | 23% | 65 |
| 4 | [Weaviate](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/weaviate/index.md) | 5% | 12% | 60 |
| 5 | [Milvus](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/milvus/index.md) | 2% | 19% | 43 |
| 6 | [Elasticsearch](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/elasticsearch/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 11 |
| 8 | [LanceDB](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/lancedb/index.md) | 0% | 8% | 12 |
| 9 | [Chroma](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/chroma/index.md) | 0% | 36% | 39 |
| 13 | [Redis Vector Search](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/redis-vector-search/index.md) | 0% | 18% | 11 |
| 15 | [Milvus / Zilliz Cloud](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/milvus-zilliz-cloud/index.md) | 0% | 40% | 10 |
| 46 | [FAISS](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/faiss/index.md) | 0% | 47% | 15 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 46 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Qdrant; alternatives MongoDB Atlas Vector Search, Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector
- GPT-5.4 mini: Pinecone; alternatives Qdrant, Weaviate, pgvector
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Pinecone, Qdrant; alternatives Weaviate, pgvector
- Perplexity Sonar: pgvector; alternatives Pinecone, Qdrant
- Grok 4.20: Qdrant; alternatives Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector
- Mistral Small: Pinecone; alternatives Qdrant, Weaviate, pgvector
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: pgvector; alternatives Pinecone, Qdrant
- Llama 4 Maverick: Qdrant; alternatives Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: pgvector; alternatives Pinecone, Qdrant
- Kimi K2: pgvector; alternatives Pinecone, Qdrant
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Pinecone; alternatives Milvus, Qdrant, Weaviate
- MiniMax M2.5: Qdrant, Weaviate; alternatives Milvus, Pinecone, pgvector
- GPT-6 Luna: Qdrant; alternatives Pinecone, pgvector
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Pinecone, pgvector; alternatives Milvus, Qdrant, Weaviate

## Sources the answers cite

71 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- github.com: 41 answers, 89 citations
- dev.to: 26 answers, 45 citations
- linkedin.com: 16 answers, 22 citations
- g2.com: 16 answers, 16 citations
- pingcap.com: 15 answers, 15 citations
- gane.ai/index: 13 answers, 19 citations
- qdrant.tech: 13 answers, 16 citations
- geekflare.com: 13 answers, 13 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://g2.com/articles/best-vector-databases (15 answers)
- https://geekflare.com/open-source/vector-database (13 answers)
- https://pingcap.com/compare/best-vector-database (12 answers)
- https://gane.ai/index/it/it-data/vector-databases (11 answers)
- https://github.com/ishandutta2007/Awesome-Vector-Database-Semantic-Search (9 answers)
- https://sganalytics.com/blog/top-vector-databases-enterprise-ai (9 answers)
- https://ciopages.com/buyer-guides/vector-database (8 answers)
- https://pureinsights.com/blog/2024/comparing-vector-search-solutions-2024 (8 answers)
- https://atlan.com/know/top-vector-databases-enterprise-ai (7 answers)
- https://gane.ai/index/it/vendors/pgvector (7 answers)

## Warned against

- Chroma: 14 of 39 labels negative. "Chroma in exposed or multi-tenant production: ... Chroma has no built-in login; do not expose it directly to the internet" (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)
- Pinecone: 15 of 65 labels negative. "Avoid for a limited budget: Pinecone — managed services with $50 minimums and costs that blow past initial estimates" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- Milvus: 8 of 43 labels negative. "Milvus for small or moderate workloads: ... it can require substantially more memory and operational complexity than lighter alternatives" (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)
- pgvector: 6 of 73 labels negative. "pgvector does not natively support GPU acceleration or disk-optimized indexes, and at billion-scale workloads typically require more advanced sharding strategies" (Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
New leader: pgvector (35%) to Qdrant (34%). Margin 0 points, within noise.

- Qdrant: 22% to 34%, +12. Cleared the floor by 1 point · rank 3 → 1 of 46.
- Chroma: 6% to 0%, −6. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 4 → 9 of 46.
- Pinecone: 25% to 21%, −4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 2 → 3 of 46.
- Elasticsearch: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 13 → 6 of 46.
- MongoDB Atlas Vector Search: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 7 → 16 of 46.
- pgvector: 35% to 34%, −1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 1 → 2 of 46.
- Milvus: 3% to 2%, −1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 6 → 5 of 46.
- Weaviate: 5% to 5%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 5 → 4 of 46.
- LanceDB: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 10 → 8 of 46.
- Redis Vector Search: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 12 → 13 of 46.
- Milvus / Zilliz Cloud: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 11 → 15 of 46.
- FAISS: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 15 → 46 of 46.

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.