Managed or Bring-Your-Own Vector Database? Choosing a RAG Deployment Model
Hosted retrieval gets you moving fast; keeping vectors in your own database gives you control. Here is how to decide — and why the choice should not lock you in.
Managed or Bring-Your-Own Vector Database?
Choose managed when
- You want to be live in days with no database to operate
- Your documents are not subject to strict residency rules
- You prefer one vendor for vectors, models and OCR
Choose bring-your-own when
- Policy requires vectors to stay in your own account
- You already run Qdrant, Pinecone, pgvector or Postgres
- You need your own embedding models and keys, or a fully air-gapped setup
The best architecture lets you start in one mode and move to the other without re-engineering. troveGEN offers both: troveGEN-Z fully managed, and a bring-your-own vector database mode. Compare them.
