# Pinecone

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Pinecone and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Managed vector database praised for hybrid dense and sparse search and cost-effectiveness for specialized use. Critics say dedicated vector databases are often overkill.

## Why people recommend it

- Capable managed vector database for embeddings (3 comments): "Pinecone allows hybrid search, merging dense and sparse vector embeddings that Postgres can't do AFAIK" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46907163)) "Databases like Pinecone and Redis are more cost-effective and capable for their special use case" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46906177)) "OpenAI embeddings + managed DB like Pinecone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46518682))

## What people warn about

- Dedicated vector database often overkill (3 comments): "spent a month setting up pinecone or qdrant and then realize they just needed search that worked" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47296837)) "we replaced pinecone and rds with neon under the hood" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47297353)) "a dedicated vector database is overkill" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47431813))
- Capabilities seen as commodity or static storage (2 comments): "getting billion+ valuations for capabilities which now seem like a commodity" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49083509)) "standard Vector Databases (Pinecone, Milvus) act as static filing cabinets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50049868))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [turbopuffer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/turbopuffer.md): 13 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.pinecone.io/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Pinecone", https://hackerapproved.com/p/pinecone/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).