Qdrant Model Migration

---
name: qdrant-model-migration
description: "Guides embedding model migration in Qdrant without downtime. Use when someone asks 'how to switch embedding models', 'how to migrate vectors', 'how to update to a new model', 'zero-downtime model change', 'how to re-embed my data', or 'can I use two models at once'. Also use when upgrading model dimensions, switching providers, or A/B testing models."
---

# What to Do When Changing Embedding Models

Vectors from different models are incompatible. You cannot mix old and new embeddings in the same vector space. On v1.18+, you can add or delete named vector fields on an existing collection — migration no longer always requires a new collection. On v1.17 or earlier, all named vectors must be defined at collection creation time.

- Understand collection aliases before choosing a strategy [Collection aliases](https://skills.qdrant.tech/md/documentation/manage-data/collections/?s=collection-aliases)


## Can I Avoid Re-embedding?

Use when: looking for shortcuts before committing to full migration.

You MUST re-embed if: changing model provider (OpenAI to Cohere), changing architecture (CLIP to BGE), incompatible dimension counts across different models, or adding sparse vectors to dense-only collection.

You CAN avoid re-embedding if: using Matryoshka models (use `dimensions` parameter to output lower-dimensional embeddings, learn linear transformation from sample data, some recall loss, good for 100M+ datasets). Or changing quantization (binary to scalar): Qdrant re-quantizes automatically. [Quantization](https://skills.qdrant.tech/md/documentation/manage-data/quantization/)


## Need Zero Downtime

Use when: production must stay available. Recommended for model replacement at scale.
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