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The RAG infrastructure problem

Building AI applications with memory typically requires:
  1. A vector database (Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant, Milvus)
  2. An embedding API (OpenAI, Cohere, or self-hosted)
  3. A backend service to coordinate queries
  4. Operational overhead for backups, scaling, monitoring
For a simple “search my documents” feature, you’re suddenly managing distributed infrastructure. Memvid takes a different approach: Smart Frames in a single file. 11x faster search.

The single-file advantage

What’s in an .mv2 file?

Everything is self-contained. No sidecar files. No auxiliary databases. No cloud sync. Just one portable .mv2 file.

What this enables

True Portability

Copy your knowledge base to a USB drive. Email it. Deploy it anywhere. It just works.

Offline First

No internet required. No API keys for basic operations. Works on airplanes.

Zero Ops

No databases to manage. No Docker containers. No cloud bills. Just a file.

Privacy by Default

Your data never leaves your machine unless you explicitly send it somewhere.

Head-to-head comparison

Memvid vs. Pinecone

Benchmark results (1,000 documents):
Why is Memvid search 11x faster? No network round-trips. Pinecone requires: (1) API call to embed your query, (2) API call to search vectors. Memvid searches locally with Smart Frames.

Memvid vs. ChromaDB


Memvid vs. Weaviate


Memvid vs. pgvector


Smart Frame capabilities

Features you won’t find in typical vector databases:

Time-travel queries

Search your memory as it existed at any point in time:

Visual search with CLIP

Search images and PDF pages by visual content:

Entity extraction (Logic Mesh)

Automatically extract and traverse relationships:

Built-in RAG with citations

Ask questions and get sourced answers without building chains:

Embedded crash recovery

The Write-Ahead Log (WAL) ensures you never lose data:

Get started

5-Minute Quickstart

Build your first AI memory

Python SDK

Complete reference