Milvus vs PISA
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Milvus
Open-source vector database built for scalable similarity search
VS
PISA
Performant indexes and search for large text collections
| Feature | Milvus | PISA |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 45,556 | ★ 1,054 |
| First released | 2019 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Pinecone, Elasticsearch | Elasticsearch |
Why pick each one
Choose PISA if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Active community (1.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in C++
Frequently asked questions
Is Milvus or PISA better?
Neither is universally better. Milvus has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Milvus and PISA free and open-source?
Yes. Milvus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and PISA under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Milvus and PISA with Docker?
Milvus: yes. PISA: check the project docs for container support.