# Pinecone API + MCP vs Qdrant API + MCP

> Pinecone API + MCP has a score of 76.4 (BB) against Qdrant API + MCP's 75.3 (BB). Both do db vector. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 10 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Pinecone API + MCP has a score of 76.4 (BB) against Qdrant API + MCP's 75.3 (BB). Both do db vector. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 10 points.

- Pinecone API + MCP: grade BB, 76.4/100, rank #28 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pinecone.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pinecone.json
- Qdrant API + MCP: grade BB, 75.3/100, rank #37 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qdrant.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/qdrant.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Pinecone API + MCP for schema & documentation (+7), agent ergonomics (+6), payments & pricing (+10).

Pick Qdrant API + MCP for reliability (+5), transparency & trust (+9).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Pinecone API + MCP | Qdrant API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 80 | Qdrant API + MCP +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 94 | 87 | Pinecone API + MCP +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 93 | 87 | Pinecone API + MCP +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 79 | 83 | Qdrant API + MCP +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 30 | Pinecone API + MCP +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 85 | Pinecone API + MCP +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 84 | Qdrant API + MCP +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **76.4 · BB** | **75.3 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Pinecone API + MCP | Qdrant API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Pinecone | Qdrant |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.pinecone.io` | `https://api.cloud.qdrant.io` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | proprietary (MCP server Apache-2.0) | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 9 | 2 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-16 |
| Popularity | 71 stars, 928k npm/wk, 970k PyPI/wk | 35k stars, 1.1M npm/wk, 3M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (8) | 3.6/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**Pinecone API + MCP.** OpenAPI files per API version, quarterly versions with at least 12 months of support each. Nine regional incidents between 9 July and 28 September 2026, four lasting more than an hour.

**Qdrant API + MCP.** Database keys can be read-only, limited to chosen collections and expire after 90 days by default. The MCP server has 2 tools, can't manage collections or run filtered queries, and last released on 10 December 2025.

## Before you call either

### Pinecone API + MCP

1. Send `X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2026-07` on every call. Without it you get the oldest supported version
2. Queries go to the index host from `describe_index`, not to api.pinecone.io
3. Wait a few seconds and retry when fresh upserts don't show up in search
4. Back off exponentially on 429. There's no `Retry-After` header
5. Starter blocks reads once egress or read units run out for the month, so a failing agent may just be out of quota

### Qdrant API + MCP

1. Create payload indexes on the fields you filter on, or filtered search slows on large collections
2. Use `/points/query` with `prefetch` to fuse dense and BM25 results
3. Pass `wait=true` on upserts when the next step reads its own writes
4. On 429, wait for the `Retry-After` seconds before retrying
5. Set `with_vector=false` unless the task needs vectors, since they dominate response size

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