milvus
About milvus
Milvus is a high-performance vector database designed for scalable approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search. It is built to handle large-scale unstructured data such as text, images, and multi-modal information, making it suitable for AI applications. Written in Go and C++, Milvus leverages hardware acceleration for CPU/GPU to optimize vector search performance.
Milvus supports a fully-distributed, Kubernetes-native architecture, enabling horizontal scaling and real-time data updates. It can handle tens of thousands of search queries on billions of vectors. For simpler use cases, Milvus offers a standalone mode for single-machine deployment and Milvus Lite, a lightweight version for quick Python integration.
The database is part of the LF AI & Data Foundation and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. Zilliz, the major contributor, also offers a fully managed version of Milvus through Zilliz Cloud, which includes serverless, dedicated, and BYOC options.
Key features
- Distributed architecture for horizontal scaling
- Support for various vector index types including HNSW, IVF, FLAT, SCANN, and DiskANN
- Hardware acceleration for CPU/GPU to optimize performance
- Multi-tenancy support with flexible isolation strategies
- Hot/cold storage mechanism for cost-effective data management
- Full text search support with BM25 and sparse embeddings
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and TLS encryption for data security
Download v2.6.19
Jun 26, 2026No direct download assets detected for the latest release.
View all 10 versionsFrequently asked questions
- Is milvus free?
- Yes. milvus is free and open-source software, distributed under the Apache-2.0 license.
- What is the latest version of milvus?
- The latest version is v2.6.19, released on Jun 26, 2026.
- What is Milvus used for?
- Milvus is used for scalable vector search, enabling efficient organization and retrieval of unstructured data like text, images, and multi-modal information in AI applications.
- How can I install Milvus?
- Milvus can be installed via Docker for standalone mode or using the Python SDK with pip install pymilvus. Milvus Lite is also available for quick Python integration.
- What platforms does Milvus support?
- Milvus supports Kubernetes-native deployments for distributed setups and standalone mode for single-machine use. It also offers a lightweight version for Python environments.
- What license does Milvus use?
- Milvus is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license and is part of the LF AI & Data Foundation.
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