Vector database

As explained in Just Use Postgres!

A vector database is a database designed to store vector representations and support efficient similarity searches over them.

A vector database stores vector embeddings and supports efficient similarity searches over vectorized data. It commonly supplies specialized indexes that speed up these searches. section 8.3 section 8.6

Postgres becomes a vector database when the pgvector extension adds the vector data type, similarity operators, and specialized vector indexes. section 8.2 section 8.7

A vector database supports an embedding-based application flow:

• Split target text into chunks when necessary and send the chunks to an embedding model. section 8.3
• Store the generated embeddings in Postgres and retrieve relevant records through vector similarity search. section 8.3 section 8.6
• Use retrieved context to augment an LLM through retrieval-augmented generation. section 8.6

Run Postgres with pgvector

Create a Docker volume, start the pgvector/pgvector:0.8.0-pg17 image on port 5432, connect with psql, and run CREATE EXTENSION vector;. section 8.2

Figure 8.10 Implementing RAG with an LLM, an embedding model, and Postgres

Trace how a chatbot sends a prompt to a backend, retrieves context from Postgres, and uses an embedding model and LLM to generate a response. section 8.6

How Just Use Postgres! covers it

How deep it goes

Explains storage, similarity search, embeddings, and specialized indexes, while deferring detailed index operation and deployment guidance.

Examples

Uses a movie recommendation service, private datasets, Docker commands, and pgvector extension setup as concrete examples.

What it assumes

Assumes familiarity with Postgres and Docker while introducing embeddings, chunking, vector data, and similarity search.

What you can do after

Operate/configure Postgres with pgvector and use stored embeddings for similarity search and RAG context retrieval.

How it connects

Connects embeddings, embedding models, vector similarity search, Postgres, pgvector, specialized indexes, RAG, and LLMs.

liveBookmanning.com

Read Just Use Postgres! on liveBook Get the book at manning.com

Also explained in

• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Grokking AI ApplicationsA vector store is a specialized database that stores text chunks or other items together with vector representations for similarity-based retrieval.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Generative AI in ActionA vector database is a data-management system that stores and provides access to data together with numerical vector representations and supports vector-based retrieval.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  AI Agents and ApplicationsA vector store is a database specialized for storing embeddings and associated documents and retrieving them by semantic similarity.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Spring AI in ActionA vector store is a data store that indexes numerical vector representations and supports similarity-based retrieval of associated items such as documents.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Build Python Web Apps with StreamlitA vector database is a data-storage system optimized for storing, indexing, and searching numerical vector representations by similarity.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Effective Conversational AIA vector store is a storage system that indexes numerical vector representations for similarity search.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Data Pipelines with Apache Airflow, Second EditionA vector database is a database that stores vector representations and supports operations such as similarity search and vector-based retrieval.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  LLMs in ProductionA vector database is a database optimized for storing and retrieving numerical vector representations using similarity-based search.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Natural Language Processing in Action, Second EditionA vector store is a software component that stores and retrieves numerical vectors, typically with similarity-search indexes.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  MongoDB 8.0 in Action, Third EditionA vector database is a database system that stores, retrieves, and searches numerical vectors by their similarity in a multidimensional space.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Machine Learning Platform EngineeringA vector database is a database system that stores numerical vector representations and supports similarity-based retrieval.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Build AI-Enhanced Web AppsA vector store is a database or storage abstraction that indexes high-dimensional vectors for efficient similarity-based retrieval.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Building Reliable AI SystemsA vector database is a database designed to store and retrieve vector representations, often by similarity.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Domain-Specific Small Language ModelsA database designed to store vectors and support similarity search, typically using approximate nearest neighbor methods for retrieval.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  AI Agents in Action, Second EditionA vector database server is a service that exposes storage and similarity retrieval over vector representations.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Investing for ProgrammersA vector database is a database designed to store and retrieve vector representations of data, typically for similarity-based search.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Introduction to Generative AI, Second EditionA vector database is a data-management system optimized for storing and searching high-dimensional vector representations by similarity.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Data Storytelling with Altair and AIA vector database is a database optimized for storing and retrieving numerical vector representations by similarity or other vector operations.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  The Art of AI Product DevelopmentA vector database is a database optimized for storing numeric vector representations and retrieving items by vector similarity.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Transformers in ActionA vector database is a database optimized for storing, indexing, and searching vector representations by their similarity.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  AI-Powered SearchA vector database is a database optimized for storing, indexing, and retrieving vector representations by similarity.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  AI Agents in ActionA vector database is a database optimized for storing numerical vector representations and retrieving records by vector-based similarity or distance.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Software Testing with Generative AIA vector database is a database specialized for storing and retrieving numerical vector representations using similarity-based search.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Building LLM Applications with DSPyA vector store is a data system that indexes and retrieves numerical vector representations, typically by similarity.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Build Applications with Local AI Models on a MacA vector database stores vector representations and supports searching for vectors that are similar or close to a query vector.

Compare how 26 books explain vector database →

Related concepts

• Chroma DBincludes · Chroma is an open-source vector database for storing and querying embeddings and associated data, such as documents and metadata.
• Pineconeincludes · Pinecone is a managed cloud vector database service for storing, indexing, and querying vector embeddings, including through similarity search.
• VectorStoreChatMemoryAdvisorused by · VectorStoreChatMemoryAdvisor is a Spring AI advisor that stores chat messages as embeddings in a vector store and retrieves relevant messages as conversational context.
• retrieval-augmented generationused by · Retrieval-augmented generation is a technique that retrieves relevant information from external sources and supplies it as context to a generative model when producing an output.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Just Use Postgres!. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.