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turbopuffer vs Zilliz

turbopuffer scores higher on the AgentReady, 53/100 against 49/100. They differ on 8 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

turbopuffer. turbopuffer is a fast, object-storage native search engine providing vector and full-text search built on object storage.

Zilliz. Zilliz offers a fully managed Vector Lakebase powered by Milvus, unifying real-time vector search, lake-scale discovery, and AI data operations.

Where turbopuffer is ahead

turbopuffer passes llms-full.txt / full agent docs, and Zilliz does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds adopt: no mandatory sales call, fast time to first request and copyable quickstart. Zilliz misses those.

And on operate, structured, predictable output. Zilliz misses it.

Where Zilliz is ahead

Zilliz passes clear canonical domain, and turbopuffer does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: authentication documented. turbopuffer misses it.

And on adopt, cli available. turbopuffer misses it.

What neither does

Both fail mcp discoverable, structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, mcp integration available, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover. Both sit at 80/100 here. turbopuffer misses clear canonical domain, mcp discoverable; Zilliz misses llms-full.txt / full agent docs, mcp discoverable.

Understand. Zilliz leads 31 to 23. turbopuffer misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; Zilliz misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented.

Adopt is whether an agent can get a key and make its first successful call without a human in the loop. turbopuffer leads 60 to 45. turbopuffer misses agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, cli available, mcp integration available; Zilliz misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart, mcp integration available.

Operate. turbopuffer leads 47 to 39. turbopuffer misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; Zilliz misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

turbopuffer starts at $16/month with no free tier. Zilliz does not publish one and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

turbopuffer clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: turbopuffer and Zilliz. Alternatives to each: turbopuffer, Zilliz.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["turbopuffer", "zilliz"]}