Hosted embeddings with tenant isolation

2. OpenAI — strong general-purpose option

Worth evaluating for a straightforward managed API and a simple application stack. Compare its embedding models against your own retrieval benchmark, and confirm the applicable API data-retention terms for your account.

Best for: teams already using OpenAI APIs.

Embedding guide ·Business terms

3. Cohere — best to investigate for enterprise deployment flexibility

Its Embed API supports text and image embeddings, while its enterprise offering advertises private deployment in a VPC or on-premises. That makes it particularly interesting when data residency and network boundaries matter.docs.cohere.com+1

Best for: enterprise security and private deployment requirements.

API documentation ·Enterprise deployment

These are candidates to benchmark, not a universal ranking. Tenant isolation depends at least as much on your storage architecture and authorization checks as it does on the embedding provider.

If tenant isolation is the primary requirement

I'd also consider cloud-hosted embeddings where private networking and IAM are important:

How I'd implement tenant isolation

Regardless of provider, use defense in depth:

• Tenant-scoped authorization: derive tenant_id from the authenticated server-side identity, never trust a client-supplied tenant ID.
• Isolated retrieval: use separate tenant collections or databases for stronger boundaries, or enforce mandatory tenant filters with database-level authorization where supported.
• Embedding API security: keep provider credentials server-side and apply per-tenant quotas and rate limits.
• Data lifecycle: enforce tenant-scoped deletion, backups, logs, and retention policies.
• Privacy verification: check provider retention, training, residency, and contractual terms separately from vector-store isolation.

My default shortlist: Voyage AI for retrieval quality, OpenAI for a simple managed API, and Azure OpenAI or Bedrock when cloud-native private networking is a hard requirement.

One important distinction: if you mean hard isolation between customers, rather than simply filtering search results by tenant, the storage and authorization architecture matters more than which embedding API you choose.

One question: Where do you need tenant isolation enforced?

Isolation boundary

Vector database and retrieval only

Embedding provider must not retain tenant data

Hard isolation: separate resources or private deployment per tenant

Cloud environment

Cloud-agnostic / managed SaaS

AWS

Azure

Google Cloud

Data sensitivity

Standard SaaS customer data

Regulated or confidential data; strict retention requirements

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