Using the gRPC Client

The SDK includes a GrpcIndex client that routes data-plane operations through a gRPC transport backed by a native Rust extension (pinecone._grpc). For bulk upsert and high-throughput workloads, gRPC typically delivers better performance than the default REST client because it uses binary serialization and HTTP/2 multiplexing.

gRPC transport is included in the base pinecone package — no extra install required.

Creating a GrpcIndex

You can obtain a GrpcIndex in two ways.

Via Pinecone.index() with grpc=True (recommended — resolves the host automatically):

python

from pinecone import Pinecone

pc = Pinecone()
index = pc.index(name="product-search", grpc=True)

Directly (when you already know the host):

python

from pinecone.grpc import GrpcIndex

index = GrpcIndex(
    host="product-search-abc123.svc.pinecone.io",
    api_key="YOUR_API_KEY",  # or set PINECONE_API_KEY env var
)

GrpcIndex is a context manager; always close it when finished:

python

with GrpcIndex(host="product-search-abc123.svc.pinecone.io") as index:
    index.upsert(vectors=[("product-42", [0.1, 0.2, ...])])

Basic Operations

GrpcIndex exposes the same interface as the HTTP Index:

python

# Upsert
response = index.upsert(
    vectors=[
        ("product-42", [0.1, 0.2, ...]),
        ("product-99", [0.3, 0.4, ...]),
    ],
    namespace="catalog",
)
print(response.upserted_count)

# Query
results = index.query(
    top_k=10,
    vector=[0.1, 0.2, ...],
    namespace="catalog",
)
for match in results.matches:
    print(match.id, match.score)

Async (Non-Blocking) Operations with PineconeFuture

Every data-plane method has an _async variant that returns a {class}~pinecone.grpc.future.PineconeFuture immediately without blocking:

python

from concurrent.futures import as_completed

futures = [
    index.upsert_async(vectors=[("product-42", [0.1, 0.2, ...])]),
    index.upsert_async(vectors=[("product-99", [0.3, 0.4, ...])]),
]

# Collect results as they complete
for future in as_completed(futures):
    result = future.result()  # blocks up to the default 5-second timeout
    print(result.upserted_count)

PineconeFuture reference

Method	Description
`future.result(timeout=5.0)`	Block until the result is ready; raises `PineconeTimeoutError` if the timeout elapses
`future.done()`	`True` if the operation has completed (or been cancelled)
`future.cancel()`	Attempt to cancel the operation

Pass timeout=None to result() to block indefinitely:

python

result = future.result(timeout=None)

PineconeFuture is compatible with concurrent.futures.as_completed() and concurrent.futures.wait(), so it integrates naturally with thread-pool patterns.

Bulk Upsert from a DataFrame

For large-scale ingestion, upsert_from_dataframe() splits a pandas DataFrame into batches and submits them via upsert_async():

python

import pandas as pd
from pinecone.grpc import GrpcIndex

df = pd.DataFrame([
    {"id": "product-42", "values": [0.1, 0.2, ...]},
    {"id": "product-99", "values": [0.3, 0.4, ...]},
])

with GrpcIndex(host="product-search-abc123.svc.pinecone.io") as index:
    response = index.upsert_from_dataframe(df, namespace="catalog", batch_size=500)
    print(response.upserted_count)

When to Prefer gRPC

Scenario	Recommendation
Bulk upsert (thousands of vectors)	gRPC — lower per-call overhead
High-throughput query loops	gRPC with `*_async()`
Async Python frameworks (FastAPI, asyncio)	Use `AsyncIndex` instead — `GrpcIndex` does not support `async/await`
Simple scripts and CLI tools	Either works; HTTP `Index` has no extra dependency

Limitations

GrpcIndex is sync only. It does not support Python's async/await. For async concurrency, use PineconeFuture or switch to AsyncIndex.
The grpc extra requires a compatible platform. Check the package's supported-platform list if installation fails.
upsert_records and search on GrpcIndex are routed over REST (the Pinecone gRPC API does not expose those endpoints).