landing_page/qdrant-landing/content/documentation/migrate-to-qdrant/from-pinecone.md

title, short_description, description, weight, partition

title	short_description	description	weight	partition
From Pinecone	Migrate Pinecone serverless indexes into Qdrant collections, preserving vectors, metadata, and namespaces in transit.	Migrate from Pinecone to Qdrant by streaming serverless index data, vectors, namespaces, and metadata into Qdrant collections with the Qdrant Migration Tool.	5	ecosystem

Migrate from Pinecone to Qdrant

What You Need from Pinecone

• API key — from the Pinecone console
• Index name — the name of the index to migrate
• Index host URL — the host endpoint shown in your index dashboard

Only Pinecone serverless indexes support listing all vectors for migration. Legacy pod-based indexes may require additional steps.

Concept Mapping

Pinecone	Qdrant	Notes
Index	Collection	One-to-one mapping
Namespace	Payload field or separate collection	No direct equivalent — the tool migrates all namespaces. Use --pinecone.namespace to migrate a specific one
Metadata	Payload	Direct mapping
Sparse values	Sparse vectors	Mapped to sparse_vector named vector by default
cosine	Cosine	Direct mapping
dotproduct	Dot	Pinecone requires unit-normalized vectors for dotproduct
euclidean	Euclid	Direct mapping

Run the Migration

docker run --net=host --rm -it registry.cloud.qdrant.io/library/qdrant-migration pinecone \
    --pinecone.index-host 'https://your-index-host.pinecone.io' \
    --pinecone.index-name 'your-index' \
    --pinecone.api-key 'pcsk_...' \
    --qdrant.url 'https://your-instance.cloud.qdrant.io:6334' \
    --qdrant.api-key 'your-qdrant-api-key' \
    --qdrant.collection 'your-collection'

Migrating a Specific Namespace

docker run --net=host --rm -it registry.cloud.qdrant.io/library/qdrant-migration pinecone \
    --pinecone.index-host 'https://your-index-host.pinecone.io' \
    --pinecone.index-name 'your-index' \
    --pinecone.api-key 'pcsk_...' \
    --pinecone.namespace 'my-namespace' \
    --qdrant.url 'https://your-instance.cloud.qdrant.io:6334' \
    --qdrant.api-key 'your-qdrant-api-key' \
    --qdrant.collection 'your-collection'

All Pinecone-Specific Flags

Flag	Required	Description
--pinecone.index-name	Yes	Name of the Pinecone index
--pinecone.index-host	Yes	Host URL of the Pinecone index
--pinecone.api-key	Yes	Pinecone API key
--pinecone.namespace	No	Specific namespace to migrate
--pinecone.service-host	No	Custom Pinecone service host

Qdrant-Side Options

Flag	Default	Description
--qdrant.id-field	__id__	Payload field name for original Pinecone IDs
--qdrant.sparse-vector	sparse_vector	Named vector for Pinecone sparse values

Gotchas

• Score scaling: Pinecone cosine similarity returns values in [0, 1] (rescaled). Qdrant returns [-1, 1]. Rankings are identical, but raw scores won't match.
• Metadata size limits: Pinecone limits metadata to 40KB per vector. Qdrant has no per-payload size limit, so data is preserved as-is.
• Namespace strategy: If you have multiple namespaces, decide upfront whether to merge them into a single Qdrant collection (using a namespace payload field for filtering) or create separate collections.

Next Steps

After migration, verify your data arrived correctly with the Migration Verification Guide.