FAISS vs. Pgvector
Compare FAISS vs. Pgvector by the following set of capabilities. We want you to choose the best database for you, even if it’s not us.
FAISS vs. Pgvector on Scalability
Yes. pgvector enables separation of storage and compute by allowing you to store your application data on one database while storing vectors, lookup values, and filter values on a separate database.
No. Can not scale beyond single node.
No distributed data replacement
FAISS scalability
Without any distributed data replacement, FAISS is not able to scale beyond a single node
pgvector scalability
You can use a solution like YugaByteDB to extend the capabilities of Postgres for distributed environments.
FAISS vs. Pgvector on Functionality
Performance is the biggest challenge with vector databases as the number of unstructured data elements stored in a vector database grows into hundreds of millions or billions, and horizontal scaling across multiple nodes becomes paramount.
Yes. Sparse & Dense Vectors and Scalar filtering.
FLAT, IVS_FLAT, IVF_SQ8, IVF_PQ, HNSW, BIN_FLAT and BIN_IVF_FLAT
HNSW & IVFFlat
FAISS functionality
FAISS is an algorithm to support kNN search.
FAISS vs. Pgvector on Purpose-built
What’s your vector database for?
A vector database is a fully managed solution for storing, indexing, and searching across a massive dataset of unstructured data that leverages the power of embeddings from machine learning models. A vector database should have the following features:
- Scalability and tunability
- Multi-tenancy and data isolation
- A complete suite of APIs
- An intuitive user interface/administrative console
pgvector is an add-on to Postgres
Python, JavaScript
Use pgvector from any language with a Postgres client
FAISS vs. Pgvector: what’s right for me?
FAISS
Faiss is a powerful library for efficient similarity search and clustering of dense vectors, with GPU-accelerated algorithms and Python wrappers, developed at FAIR, the fundamental AI research team at Meta License: MIT license
Pgvector
pgvector is a PostgreSQL extension designed to facilitate the storage, querying, and indexing of vectors within a PostgreSQL database.
License: PostgreSQL License
Compare FAISS with others
The Definitive Guide to Choosing a Vector Database
Overwhelmed by all the options? Learn key features to look for & how to evaluate with your own data. Choose with confidence.