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Vector databases · October 2026 Edition

Qdrant vs Weaviate

Four of fourteen models named Qdrant first on the direct prompt; two named Weaviate. Both were named by all fourteen models and Qdrant carries 70 labels and Weaviate 67, so the shares are not directly comparable.

Qdrant

accepted challenger

Named in two categories this edition.

Weaviate

accepted challenger

Named in one category this edition.

First-choice share22%5%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate4%10%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#3#5A position in a field of 10; printed, not drawn.
Labels7067A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Qdrant reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Pinecone was named alongside these two in eleven of the fourteen direct answers. pgvector vs Qdrant · pgvector vs Weaviate · Pinecone vs Qdrant

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the vector databases page.

By framing

How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
QdrantFirst choices, of fourteen modelsWeaviate
Direct42
Paraphrase31
Comparative21
Budget-constrained602 against Weaviate
Scale-constrained101 against Weaviate
Negative203 against Qdrant · 4 against Weaviate
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.

Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Qdrant and Weaviate were named in the same answer 181 times, of the 213 answers naming Qdrant and the 203 naming Weaviate. In those answers Weaviate took the first choice seven times and Qdrant thirty-one.

Every model, every framing

The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Qdrant and Weaviate stood in it.
ModelDirectParaphraseComparativeBudget-constrainedScale-constrainedNegative
Claude Haiku 4.5
GPT-5.4 mini
Gemini 3.5 Flash
Perplexity Sonar
Grok 4.1 Fast
Mistral Small
DeepSeek V4 Flash
Llama 4 Maverick
Qwen 3.7 Flash
Kimi K2
GLM 4.7 FlashX
MiniMax M2.5
GPT-6 Luna
Muse Glimmer 30B
Qdrant Weaviate first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Qdrant on the left and Weaviate on the right.

The direct prompt

The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Qdrant and Weaviate stood in it.

Both were the first choice

1 of 14 modelsThe answer named them together, and the judge labeled each a first choice.
GLM 4.7 FlashXQdrant, Weaviate alternatives: pgvector

Qdrant first, Weaviate an alternative

3 of 14 modelsWeaviate was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.
Perplexity SonarQdrant, pgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Weaviate
DeepSeek V4 FlashQdrant, pgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Weaviate
GPT-6 LunaQdrant alternatives: Pinecone, pgvector

Weaviate first, Qdrant not the choice

1 of 14 modelsQdrant was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.
Claude Haiku 4.5Pinecone, Weaviate

Neither was the first choice, one was named

7 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.
GPT-5.4 miniPinecone alternatives: Qdrant, Weaviate
Gemini 3.5 Flashpgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Qdrant, Weaviate
Grok 4.1 Fastpgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Qdrant, Weaviate
Qwen 3.7 FlashPinecone alternatives: MongoDB Atlas Vector Search, Weaviate
Kimi K2pgvector alternatives: Pinecone, Qdrant, Weaviate
MiniMax M2.5Pinecone alternatives: Elasticsearch, Milvus, Weaviate
Muse Glimmer 30BPinecone, pgvector alternatives: Qdrant, Weaviate

Neither was named

2 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.
Mistral Smallpgvector alternatives: pgvectorscale
Llama 4 Maverickpgvector

Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Qdrant leads by twelve points.
Qdrant17%#3 of 7
Weaviate5%#4 of 7
The full small business standing →
Mid-marketThe figures above
Qdrant leads by seventeen points.
Qdrant22%#3 of 10
Weaviate5%#5 of 10
The full mid-market standing →
Enterprise
Qdrant leads by two points.
Qdrant9%#2 of 10
Weaviate7%#4 of 10
The full enterprise standing →

What the models said about Qdrant

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.

“The open source engine is strong technically, but self-hosting requires hardening defaults and active patching.” Muse Glimmer 30B · negative prompt · soft negative
“Qdrant \u2013 Known production issues ... Performance issues, GLIBC issues, steep learning curve” GLM 4.7 FlashX · negative prompt · soft negative
“Qdrant had a reported arbitrary-file-write issue involving its logger endpoint.” GPT-6 Luna · negative prompt · soft negative
“For most mid-market companies, pgvector or Qdrant represent the best balance of cost, capability, and practical feasibility” DeepSeek V4 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
“I would usually recommend Qdrant if you want a strong balance of production readiness, flexibility, and cost control” Perplexity Sonar · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“I'd recommend Qdrant for most mid-market B2B use cases because it appears most consistently favored for this segment” Perplexity Sonar · direct prompt · first choice

What the models said about Weaviate

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.

“Weaviate's own security checklist says self-managed deployments allow anonymous queries by default unless you configure auth. That's fine for local dev, but risky for production.” GPT-5.4 mini · negative prompt · soft negative
“Weaviate Cloud if your costs need to be especially simple and predictable: Pricing can depend on vector dimensions...” GPT-6 Luna · negative prompt · soft negative
“*Proprietary (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate Cloud):* Easier to start, harder to leave later (vendor lock-in).” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · soft negative
“I'd recommend either Pinecone ... or Weaviate (if you want flexibility and cost control)” Claude Haiku 4.5 · direct prompt · first choice
“I'd suggest beginning with Weaviate or pgvector if you're already invested in PostgreSQL” Claude Haiku 4.5 · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Weaviate (open‑source + managed cloud, built‑in multimodal & GraphQL APIs)” GLM 4.7 FlashX · direct prompt · first choice
Also compared

Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.