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Open source alternatives to Pinecone[011]

Pinecone provides a fully managed vector database for storing embeddings and running similarity search behind AI and RAG applications. Below are 11 self-hostable open source alternatives, ranked by GitHub popularity.

// AI & ML№ 001
Mem0

Mem0

★ FEATUREDPYTHON

The Memory layer for your AI apps

★ STARS

55.1k

⑂ FORKS

6.2k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 002
Milvus

Milvus

★ FEATUREDGO

Milvus is a high-performance, cloud-native vector database built for scalable vector ANN search

★ STARS

44.2k

⑂ FORKS

4.0k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 003
Qdrant

Qdrant

★ FEATUREDRUST

High-performance, massive-scale Vector Database and Vector Search Engine for the next generation of AI. Also available in the cloud

★ STARS

31.1k

⑂ FORKS

2.2k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 004
Chroma

Chroma

RUST

Search infrastructure for AI

★ STARS

27.9k

⑂ FORKS

2.2k

OPEN PROJECT→
// DEVELOPER TOOLS№ 005
Typesense

Typesense

C++

Open Source alternative to Algolia + Pinecone

★ STARS

25.8k

⑂ FORKS

886

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 006
Letta

Letta

PYTHON

Letta is the platform for building stateful agents: AI with advanced memory that can learn and self-improve over time.

★ STARS

22.5k

⑂ FORKS

2.4k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 007
Supermemory

Supermemory

TYPESCRIPT

Memory engine and app that is extremely fast, scalable. The Memory API for the AI era.

★ STARS

22.5k

⑂ FORKS

2.1k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 008
Weaviate

Weaviate

GO

Weaviate is an open-source vector database that stores both objects and vectors, allowing for the combination of vector search with structured filtering with the fault tolerance and scalability of a cloud-native database​.

★ STARS

16.1k

⑂ FORKS

1.3k

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 009
Activeloop

Activeloop

C++

Database for AI

★ STARS

9.1k

⑂ FORKS

709

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 010
HelixDB

HelixDB

RUST

The fastest & most scalable graph-vector database on the market

★ STARS

4.3k

⑂ FORKS

223

OPEN PROJECT→
// AI & ML№ 011
Laminar

Laminar

TYPESCRIPT

Open-source observability platform purpose-built for AI agents. YC S24.

★ STARS

2.9k

⑂ FORKS

194

OPEN PROJECT→

// EDITOR'S TAKE

Qdrant is the closest swap: one binary, strong payload filtering, and a managed cloud if you would rather not operate it, which is where most teams leaving Pinecone end up. Milvus scales further into the billions of vectors but hands you a distributed system to run, while Chroma is excellent for prototypes and local work and starts to strain well before that.

// FREQUENTLY ASKED

What is the best open source Pinecone alternative?

Mem0 is the most popular open source Pinecone alternative by GitHub stars (55,104 stars). The other 10 options are ranked above.

Are these Pinecone alternatives self-hostable?

Yes — every project listed here is open source and runs on your own infrastructure. Click into a project to see its license, stars, language, and current health status.

Are they free?

All projects shown are free and open source. Check each project's license page for the terms — most are MIT, Apache 2.0, or AGPL.