Facts read November 7, 2026
Pinecone vs turbopuffer
Pinecone is Cuely's default vector search pick when your description doesn't favor either one: managed vector search with a free plan that covers a small app. Pick turbopuffer if you care most about high volume.
Side by side
| Fact | Pinecone | turbopuffer |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A managed vector database. | Vector and full-text search on object storage, priced by usage. |
| Free plan | Starter (free): up to 2 GB storage, 2M write units and 1M read units per month, 5 indexes, us-east-1 only. | None |
| Paid from | Builder: $20/month flat. Standard: $50/month minimum usage; storage $0.33/GB-month. | Launch: $16/month minimum usage; storage up to $0.33 per GB. |
| At 1,000 users | $0/month | $16/month |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Best for | Large vector counts without tuning Postgres; Teams that want a managed vector service | Very large or many-tenant indexes; Low storage cost at scale |
| Watch out | The free Starter plan runs only in us-east-1. Standard has a $50/month minimum. | No free plan: the cheapest plan has a $16/month minimum. |
Where they differ
The published scores, from −3 to +3, that decide which one Cuely picks for each need.
| Need | Pinecone | turbopuffer |
|---|---|---|
| keep costs as low as possible | 0 No particular strength here. | −2 No free plan; $16/month minimum. |
| high volume | +2 Built for large vector counts without tuning indexes yourself. | +3 Object-storage based, so very large indexes stay cheap. |
| fewer vendors | −1 A separate store to keep in sync with your database. | 0 No particular strength here. |
| EU data residency or GDPR | −1 The free plan is us-east-1 only. | 0 No particular strength here. |
| a database per customer | 0 No particular strength here. | +1 Many small namespaces (one per customer) are a common pattern. |
Sources: Pinecone pricing (read November 7, 2026), turbopuffer pricing (read November 7, 2026). No vendor pays for placement.