Migrate from Milvus to Qdrant
What You Need from Milvus
- Milvus URL — the gRPC endpoint of your Milvus instance
- Collection name — the collection to migrate
- API key — if using Zilliz Cloud or authenticated Milvus
Concept Mapping
| Milvus | Qdrant | Notes |
|---|
| Collection | Collection | One-to-one mapping |
| Partition | Payload field or separate collection | Use --milvus.partitions to specify which partitions to migrate |
| Schema fields | Payload | Non-vector fields become payload |
COSINE | Cosine | The tool creates Cosine by default |
L2 | Euclid | Not detected. Set --qdrant.distance-metric explicitly |
IP (inner product) | Dot | Not detected. Set --qdrant.distance-metric explicitly |
| Dynamic fields | Payload | JSON-typed dynamic fields are preserved |
Run the Migration
docker run --net=host --rm -it registry.cloud.qdrant.io/library/qdrant-migration milvus \
--milvus.url 'your-milvus-host:19530' \
--milvus.collection 'your-collection' \
--milvus.api-key 'your-milvus-api-key' \
--qdrant.url 'https://your-instance.cloud.qdrant.io:6334' \
--qdrant.api-key 'your-qdrant-api-key' \
--qdrant.collection 'your-collection'
Migrating from Zilliz Cloud
Zilliz Cloud endpoints use HTTPS, so pass the full URL and enable TLS authentication:
docker run --net=host --rm -it registry.cloud.qdrant.io/library/qdrant-migration milvus \
--milvus.url 'https://your-cluster.cloud.zilliz.com' \
--milvus.enable-tls-auth \
--milvus.collection 'your-collection' \
--milvus.api-key 'your-zilliz-api-key' \
--qdrant.url 'https://your-instance.cloud.qdrant.io:6334' \
--qdrant.api-key 'your-qdrant-api-key' \
--qdrant.collection 'your-collection'
Migrating Specific Partitions
docker run --net=host --rm -it registry.cloud.qdrant.io/library/qdrant-migration milvus \
--milvus.url 'your-milvus-host:19530' \
--milvus.collection 'your-collection' \
--milvus.partitions 'partition_a,partition_b' \
--qdrant.url 'https://your-instance.cloud.qdrant.io:6334' \
--qdrant.api-key 'your-qdrant-api-key' \
--qdrant.collection 'your-collection'
All Milvus-Specific Flags
| Flag | Required | Description |
|---|
--milvus.url | Yes | Milvus gRPC endpoint |
--milvus.collection | Yes | Collection name to migrate |
--milvus.api-key | No | API key (for Zilliz Cloud) |
--milvus.username | No | Username for authentication |
--milvus.password | No | Password for authentication |
--milvus.db-name | No | Database name |
--milvus.partitions | No | Comma-separated partition names |
--milvus.server-version | No | Override detected server version |
--milvus.enable-tls-auth | No | Enable TLS authentication |
Qdrant-Side Options
| Flag | Default | Description |
|---|
--qdrant.distance-metric | cosine | Distance metric per vector field (map format, e.g., field1=euclid;field2=dot). The tool does not read the metric from Milvus, so set it for every L2 or IP field |
Gotchas
- Partitions: The tool does not record which partition a point came from, so points from all migrated partitions are indistinguishable in the target collection.
Next Steps
After migration, verify your data arrived correctly with the Migration Verification Guide.
Ready to try Qdrant?