Key Takeaway
Vector database selection should be driven by your query pattern (real-time vs. batch, single-vector vs. multi-vector) rather than benchmark leaderboards that may not reflect your workload.
When to Use This Template
Use this ADR when your team is selecting a vector database for RAG pipelines, semantic search, recommendation systems, or any application that requires similarity search over embeddings. This template is appropriate whether you are evaluating managed services (Pinecone, Weaviate Cloud, Qdrant Cloud), self-hosted options (Milvus, Qdrant, Chroma), or vector extensions on existing databases (pgvector, Elasticsearch kNN). It is especially valuable when the team is transitioning from a prototype vector store to a production-grade solution.
ADR Template
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