PGVector alternative. Schema changes without migrations.

Hitting pgvector limits? LanceDB gives you dedicated vector infrastructure — without competing for Postgres resources, managing extension upgrades, or running migrations.

Why teams switch

Compute-storage separation

Dedicated vector infrastructure on object storage. Scale independently from your transactional DB. Up to 100x savings.

One table, not six systems

Raw data, embeddings, and features together. No sync jobs between Postgres and a separate vector store.

Schema evolution without rebuilds

Add embedding columns without ALTER TABLE. No pgvector migrations. No downtime.

Full-text + hybrid search, native

Vector, full-text, and SQL queries in one system. No extensions to manage.

Comparison

	PGVector	LanceDB
Cost	Extension sharing resources with transactional workloads.	Dedicated object storage with compute-storage separation. Up to 100x savings.
Scale	Postgres extension, inherits relational DB scaling constraints.	20 PB largest table. 20K+ QPS. Billions of vectors.
Search	Vector via extension. Full-text via Postgres tsvector.	Native vector, full-text, and SQL hybrid search in one query.
Data model	Extension bolted onto relational DB.	Schema evolution - raw data, embeddings, and features in one table.
Operations	Constrained by Postgres query planner and vacuum.	Stateless compute. No vacuuming, no connection pooling.
Best for	Small vector workloads alongside existing Postgres.	Dedicated vector infrastructure at scale, schema evolution.

The Power of the Lance Format

Vector Search

Fast scans and random access from the same table — no tradeoff
Zero-copy access for high throughput without serialization overhead

Multi-Modal

Raw data, embeddings, and metadata in one table — not pointers to blob storage
No separate metadata store to keep in sync

PGVector alternative. Schema changes without migrations.

Enterprise-Grade Requirements

Security

Granular RBAC, SSO integration, and VPC deployment options.

Governance

Data versioning and time-travel capabilities for auditability.

Support

Dedicated technical account management and guaranteed SLAs.