--- title: You Don't Need a Vector Database, Postgres Already Has... description: pgvector is a Postgres extension that adds a vector column type and cosine similarity operators, enabling semantic search directly in Postgres without a... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/you-don-t-need-a-vector-database-postgres-already-has-pgvector-d62seekr1 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: You Don't Need a Vector Database, Postgres Already Has pgvector | daily.dev og:description: pgvector is a Postgres extension that adds a vector column type and cosine similarity operators, enabling semantic search directly in Postgres without a... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/you-don-t-need-a-vector-database-postgres-already-has-pgvector-d62seekr1 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/D62seEKr1.png og:image:alt: You Don't Need a Vector Database, Postgres Already Has pgvector og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # You Don't Need a Vector Database, Postgres Already Has pgvector **[Prisma Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/prisma-blog)** · 11 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary pgvector is a Postgres extension that adds a vector column type and cosine similarity operators, enabling semantic search directly in Postgres without a dedicated vector database like Pinecone or Weaviate. The post walks through building a semantic search demo using Prisma Next and its @prisma-next/extension-pgvector pack, which provides type-safe vector operations, a Vector type tied to declared dimensions, and automatic extension migration. The tutorial covers spawning a temporary Prisma Postgres database, declaring a schema with a vector column, inserting embeddings, and querying by cosine similarity — all with compile-time type checking. A comparison table outlines when pgvector is sufficient (up to a few million vectors, apps already on Postgres) versus when a dedicated vector engine is warranted (billion-scale ANN, hybrid search features). ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Building Vector Similarity Search in PostgreSQL with pgvector](https://daily.dev/posts/building-vector-similarity-search-in-postgresql-with-pgvector-klkt5sztv) · Machine Learning Mastery · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [pgvector in Django: Building Semantic Search with PostgreSQL Instead of a Separate Vector Database](https://daily.dev/posts/pgvector-in-django-building-semantic-search-with-postgresql-instead-of-a-separate-vector-database-fpxykqida) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Beyond the Vector Store: Building the Full Data Layer for AI Applications](https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-vector-store-building-the-full-data-layer-for-ai-applications-5nz7kmt0g) · Machine Learning Mastery · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#postgresql](https://daily.dev/tags/postgresql), [#vector-search](https://daily.dev/tags/vector-search), [#prisma](https://daily.dev/tags/prisma), [#pgvector](https://daily.dev/tags/pgvector) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/you-don-t-need-a-vector-database-postgres-already-has-pgvector-d62seekr1) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"You Don't Need a Vector Database, Postgres Already Has pgvector","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/you-don-t-need-a-vector-database-postgres-already-has-pgvector-d62seekr1","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/you-don-t-need-a-vector-database-postgres-already-has-pgvector-d62seekr1"},"datePublished":"2026-07-17T10:42:43.377Z","dateModified":"2026-07-17T10:43:09.071Z","description":"pgvector is a Postgres extension that adds a vector column type and cosine similarity operators, enabling semantic search directly in Postgres without a...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c47aba687e04a853e826b5f31e07a0c6?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c47aba687e04a853e826b5f31e07a0c6?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Prisma Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Prisma Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--wjA5CgSL--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780213432/logos/prisma-blog?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/prisma-blog"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/you-don-t-need-a-vector-database-postgres-already-has-pgvector-d62seekr1","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"postgresql,vector-search,prisma,pgvector","timeRequired":"PT11M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Prisma Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/prisma-blog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"You Don't Need a Vector Database, Postgres Already Has pgvector"}]} ```