Methodology & Bibliography — Vector-DB Cost Calculator
How this site is sourced, which canonical primary sources back its claims, and how the data is refreshed.
Data last refreshed: 2026-05-07. Next scheduled refresh: Q3 2026 or sooner on regulator/vendor trigger.
Sourcing rule
Every claim has at least one direct quote from a canonical primary source — vendor docs, standards bodies, regulator publications, peer-reviewed papers, or an analyst publication where the analyst is the primary source for the framing. Wikipedia and secondary blogs are never the primary citation.
Freshness flags
- Foundational — original peer-reviewed papers (e.g., 2020 RAG, 2022 Constitutional AI). Refreshed only if substantively revised.
- In force — current binding regulator text or in-effect specifications, with the in-force date.
- Emerging 2026 — terms that entered mainstream discourse in 2026.
- Contested — entries with named, meaningful disagreement in the field; we carry both positions.
Bibliography
- Vector database landscape — comparison surveys 2026. https://www.firecrawl.dev/blog/best-vector-databases
- Pinecone — Documentation. https://docs.pinecone.io/
- Qdrant — Documentation. https://qdrant.tech/documentation/