What beats Pinecone in vector DB speed?

pgvector HNSW and Qdrant, at 5ms and 3ms p50 on 1M vectors — versus Pinecone's 12ms.

Is pgvector good for production RAG?

Yes, with HNSW for scale, full tuning control, and zero-sync Postgres integration.

Cheapest vector database for 1M vectors?

pgvector on Neon serverless, $30-50/month for bursty loads.

pgvector's 5ms Latency Shock: Beating Pinecone and Qdrant at 1M Vectors

Qdrant leads at 3ms, but pgvector's 5ms on 1M vectors — using just Postgres — crushes expectations. Here's why your next vector stack might not need a dedicated service.

theAIcatchup Apr 09, 2026 4 min read

Latency benchmark chart: pgvector, Qdrant, Pinecone on 1M vectors

⚡ Key Takeaways

pgvector HNSW delivers near-top latency (5ms p50) at Postgres simplicity, debunking slow myths. 𝕏
Pinecone serverless lags on tails and recall; no tuning hurts production RAG. 𝕏
Neon pgvector slashes costs to $30/month for bursty loads — the serverless Postgres edge. 𝕏

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#Pinecone #Qdrant #RAG performance #Weaviate #pgvector #vector database benchmarks

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Originally reported by dev.to

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