Pinecone vs Weaviate: Engineer’s Field Guide Last reviewed: 2025-09-17.

Executive summary

• Deployment & control: Pinecone is a fully managed vector database with serverless indexes plus optional Dedicated and BYOC modes; BYOC runs Pinecone inside your cloud account for data sovereignty Pinecone BYOC, Create index (cloud=aws|gcp|azure). Weaviate offers Serverless Cloud, Enterprise Cloud, and BYOC as managed options, in addition to open-source self-hosting Weaviate production environments, Weaviate BYOC.
• Hybrid search: Pinecone supports lexical+semantic via sparse+dense vectors; docs outline two patterns: separate sparse & dense indexes plus reranking, or a single hybrid index—trade-offs are documented Pinecone hybrid search. Weaviate provides built-in hybrid (vector + BM25) in one query path Weaviate hybrid search, BM25.
• Limits & scale: Pinecone serverless supports up to 20,000 dimensions, sparse vectors with up to 4.2B dimensions and 2,048 non-zero entries, and 40 KB metadata per record (plan-dependent rate limits) Pinecone database limits (as of 2025-09-17). Weaviate’s throughput/latency depend on index params (HNSW ef, maxConnections) and cluster size; multi-tenancy isolates tenants on separate shards Weaviate vector index config, Weaviate multi-tenancy.
• Pricing models: Pinecone (serverless) charges for storage ($0.33/GB-mo), write units ($4–$6 per million), read units ($16–$24 per million), plus backup/restore and object-storage import; Standard vs Enterprise tiers and minimums apply Pinecone Pricing (as of 2025-09-17). Weaviate Serverless charges per 1M vector dimensions stored with SLA tiers (Standard from $25/mo at $0.095/1M dims-mo); Enterprise/BYOC differ Weaviate Pricing (as of 2025-09-17).
• Security & compliance: Pinecone lists SOC 2 and ISO 27001, private networking/endpoints, HIPAA support (Enterprise), and CMEK in public preview Pinecone Pricing → Security & Compliance, HIPAA announcement, CMEK (preview). Weaviate provides SOC 2 and HIPAA statements with a Trust Portal, DPA, encryption in transit/at rest, and tenant isolation for multi-tenancy Weaviate Security, Trust Portal, Weaviate DPA.

TL;DR — When to choose which

• Choose Pinecone if…
  • You want managed serverless with clear RU/WU pricing and autoscaling, plus Dedicated or BYOC options Pinecone Pricing, Pinecone BYOC.
  • You need sparse+dense hybrid with vendor-hosted rerankers and a documented pattern for separate indexes + reranking for full control Hybrid search, Rerank models.
  • Your workload relies on very high dimensions or sparse vectors at large scale (e.g., 20k dense dims; sparse up to 4.2B dims with 2,048 non-zero) Database limits (as of 2025-09-17).
  • You want object-storage bulk import (S3/GCS/Azure) to control ingest costs and speed Bulk import (preview).
• Choose Weaviate if…
  • You prefer open source with the option to run self-managed or move to managed Serverless/Enterprise/BYOC later Weaviate production environments.
  • You want built-in BM25+vector hybrid and GraphQL/REST/gRPC APIs in a single system Hybrid search, API references, gRPC.
  • You need native multi-tenancy with tenant-scoped shards and isolation for SaaS use cases Weaviate multi-tenancy.
  • You value built-in monitoring hooks (Prometheus), compression (PQ/BQ in Cloud), and broad LLM/agent ecosystem integrations Monitoring, Serverless features, LLM/agent integrations.

What they are

• Pinecone is a fully managed vector database focused on low-latency similarity search at scale, offered as serverless (default) with options for Dedicated read capacity and BYOC. It supports dense and sparse vectors, integrated embedding/reranking, and multi-cloud regions (AWS/GCP/Azure) Architecture, Create index (cloud options), Dedicated read capacity, BYOC.
• Weaviate is an AI-native vector database available as open source and as a managed service (Serverless, Enterprise Cloud, BYOC). It provides vector search, BM25 lexical search, hybrid search, GraphQL/REST/gRPC APIs, and multi-tenancy Weaviate product overview, Hybrid search, API, Multi-tenancy.

Feature comparison

Performance & limits

• Pinecone
  • Serverless limits: 20k dims (dense), sparse up to 4.2B dims with 2,048 non-zero; metadata 40 KB; plan-based rate limits documented (RUs/WUs) Database limits, Decrease latency (rate-limit guidance) (as of 2025-09-17).
  • Sparse-only preview: separate sparse indexes have additional preview limits (e.g., 1,000 non-zero, QPS bounds) Sparse index limitations (as of 2025-09-17).
  • Dedicated indexes: remove read rate limits; capacity scales with replicas/shards Dedicated read capacity.
  • Reranking: hosted rerankers with documented token/doc limits Rerank models.
• Weaviate
  • Latency/throughput: governed by HNSW/FLAT configuration (ef, efConstruction, maxConnections) and cluster sizing Vector index config, HNSW tuning.
  • Real-time behavior: search executes against consistent snapshots while ingestion proceeds Real-time snapshots.
  • Streaming & gRPC: optional streaming search over gRPC; HTTP/JSON and GraphQL also available gRPC streaming, API overview.
  • Multi-tenancy isolation: tenants stored on separate shards; operations scoped per-tenant Multi-tenancy.

Pricing & licensing

• Pinecone (managed SaaS). Serverless pricing uses: storage ($0.33/GB-mo), Write Units ($4–$6 per million) and Read Units ($16–$24 per million) depending on plan; backups and restores incur additional fees; object-storage import is billed per GB; plan minimums apply (Standard $50/mo, Enterprise $500/mo) Pinecone Pricing (as of 2025-09-17). BYOC and Dedicated capacity are enterprise features Pinecone BYOC, Dedicated read capacity.
• Weaviate (open source + managed). Serverless Cloud bills per 1M vector dimensions stored per month, with SLA tiers (Standard from $25/mo at $0.095/1M dims-mo; higher tiers vary); Enterprise Cloud and BYOC are separately priced Weaviate Pricing (as of 2025-09-17). Feature specifics per tier (e.g., HA, PQ/BQ) are listed on the Serverless page Serverless details.

Security, compliance & data handling

• Pinecone: SOC 2 and ISO 27001 attestations, private networking/endpoints, HIPAA support (Enterprise), Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) in public preview; encryption in transit/at rest; multi-cloud region selection for residency Pinecone Pricing → Security & Compliance, HIPAA, CMEK preview, Create index (cloud/region). BYOC keeps data in your account/VPC Pinecone BYOC.
• Weaviate: Trust Portal, SOC 2 and HIPAA statements, DPA; encryption at rest/in transit; native multi-tenancy for isolation; Weaviate Cloud advertises automated daily backups and HA options Security, Trust Portal, DPA, Serverless.

Ecosystem & integrations

• Pinecone: official SDKs (Python/JS/Go/Java/.NET/Rust), Terraform provider; bulk import from S3/GCS/Azure; integrated embedding/rerank models Create index, Terraform provider, Import data, Rerank.
• Weaviate: integrations with LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack, Semantic Kernel; Prometheus metrics for monitoring; gRPC clients; Databricks/Spark connector updates referenced by Weaviate LLM/agent integrations, Prometheus monitoring, LangChain integration, LlamaIndex.

Developer experience

• Pinecone: create serverless indexes (dense or sparse), optionally with integrated embedding; hybrid via separate indexes or single hybrid; object-storage bulk import; backups/restore APIs; Dedicated for higher read throughput; known limitations are documented (e.g., sparse queries require dot-product metric) Create serverless index, Hybrid search, Import, Backups, Dedicated read capacity, Known limitations.
• Weaviate: straightforward setup via Cloud or self-host; choice of GraphQL, REST, or gRPC; hybrid in one query; multi-tenancy controls (auto-tenant creation, tenant states); schema & HNSW tuning well-documented; Serverless Cloud exposes GUI, PQ/BQ options, and HA API, Multi-tenancy operations, Vector index config, Serverless.

Decision matrix

FAQs

1. Can Pinecone and Weaviate both do hybrid lexical+semantic search? Yes. Pinecone supports hybrid via sparse+dense vectors using either separate indexes + reranking or a single hybrid index Pinecone hybrid search. Weaviate fuses BM25 + vector in one query Weaviate hybrid.
2. What are Pinecone’s published serverless limits? Up to 20k dimensions for dense vectors; sparse vectors up to 4.2B dims with 2,048 non-zero values; 40 KB metadata per record; plus plan-based rate limits Pinecone database limits (as of 2025-09-17).
3. Does Weaviate support multi-tenancy? Yes—tenants are stored on separate shards and operations are tenant-scoped Weaviate multi-tenancy.
4. How do the pricing models differ? Pinecone charges for storage and per-request units (RUs/WUs) plus features like backup/restore and import Pinecone Pricing (as of 2025-09-17). Weaviate Serverless charges by vector dimensions stored with SLA tiers; Enterprise/BYOC differ Weaviate Pricing (as of 2025-09-17).
5. What security/compliance artifacts exist? Pinecone lists SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA (Enterprise) and CMEK (preview) Pinecone Pricing → Security, HIPAA, CMEK preview. Weaviate provides SOC 2/HIPAA statements, a Trust Portal, and a DPA Weaviate Security, Trust Portal, DPA.
6. What’s the fastest way to bulk-load into Pinecone? Use the object-storage import workflow (Parquet in S3/GCS/Azure) and upsert from there (public preview) Import data. Weaviate supports batch import and backup/restore with S3/GCS/Azure backends Backups.
7. Does sparse querying in Pinecone require a specific metric? Yes—sparse querying is supported only with dot-product distance Known limitations.

Changelog & methodology

• How we sourced facts: All claims are drawn from vendor documentation, pricing pages, or official trust/legal portals linked inline. Numbers that can change (pricing, limits) are explicitly marked (as of 2025-09-17).
• Potential variability: Preview features (e.g., Pinecone sparse-only indexes, object-storage import, CMEK) and service limits may evolve. Always confirm plan/region specifics in the linked docs before committing.