Database And Data Storage — enterprise stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Managed Relational DB - Postgres Primary
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon Free: 0.5GB storage, 1 project, 100h compute; Launch $19/mo includes 10GB storage + 100h compute + $0.35/hr extra compute + $1.50/GB storage over. Supabase Free: 500MB DB, 2GB BW. RDS db.t4g.micro $16/mo + $0.115/GB-mo storage + $0.095/GB backup. Overage: $0.10/GB egress.
Managed Relational DB - MySQL / MySQL-Compatible
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsPlanetScale Free: 5GB storage, 10M reads/mo, 1 prod branch; Scaler $39/mo + $1.50/GB-mo + $0.75/M reads + $1.50/M writes. DO MySQL $15/mo (1GB RAM/10GB). Aurora MySQL: $0.12/vACU-hr (min 2 vACU ~ $115/mo) + $0.10/GB-mo + $0.20/M IO. Overage: replicas $0.12/vACU-hr.
NoSQL Document DB (MongoDB / DynamoDB)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAtlas M0 Free: 512MB, shared. M10 $57/mo (2GB RAM, 10GB storage). M30 $450/mo. DynamoDB Free: 25 WCU+RCU, 25GB. On-Demand: $1.25/M writes ($1.875 AWS) + $0.25/M reads + $0.25/GB storage + $0.02/GB backup. Overage auto-scales.
Managed Redis / Key-Value Cache Layer
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsUpstash Free: 10k cmds/day, 256MB, TLS. Pro $10/mo includes 100k/day + $0.20/100k cmds. Redis Cloud Free: 30MB, 30 conn. Essentials $5/mo start (100MB). ElastiCache Serverless: $0.125/GB-hr ($90/mo/GB) + $0.20/M EPU + $0.05/GB data. Overage: extra 100MB $0.50/mo.
Object Storage (S3-Compatible)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsR2 Free: 10GB storage, 1M Class A, 10M Class B, 0 egress fees forever. Paid: $15/TB/mo storage + $4.50/M Class A + $0.36/M Class B. B2: First 10GB free, then $6/TB/mo + $0.005/1k download + $0.01/GB egress (1GB free daily). S3: 5GB free 12mo, then $23/TB-mo + $5/M PUT + $0.40/M GET + $0.09/GB egress (first 100GB $0.09). Overage: Infrequent access cheaper.
Automated Backups & Snapshots (Daily/Weekly)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsLitestream/wal-g OSS free + R2 $15/TB/mo. Neon backups included 7d. RDS Snapshots: 100% DB size free backup, extra $0.095/GB-mo + cross-region $0.021/GB. SimpleBackups $9/mo 1 server + storage. Overage: $0.06/GB extra backed-up.
Connection Pooling Layer
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsPgBouncer OSS free: VPS $4-5/mo (Fly/Hetzner). Supabase pooling included. RDS Proxy: $0.015/vCPU-hr ($10.8/mo per vCPU) + DB cost. Example t3.medium proxy ~$21.60/mo. Prisma Accelerate Free 100k queries, Pro $20/mo 1M queries. Overage $5/M queries.
Local Dev DB & CLI Tooling
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsDocker Desktop Free personal (<250 emp). OrbStack Free for personal, Pro $8/mo. TablePlus Free 1 DB, Pro $89 one-time (perpetual). DataGrip $11.90/mo first year, $9.52 second. Neon Local CLI free. No overage infra, just license.
Database GUI & Admin Panel
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitspgAdmin/DBeaver CE free. Beekeeper Ultimate $19/mo per user. TablePlus $89 one-time + $39/mo Teams (shared). Retool Free 3 apps; Standard $15/user/mo for DB GUI + $10/M queries over. Overage: Retool external users $250/mo for 50.
Full-Text Search Index (Elasticsearch/OpenSearch/pg_search)
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsTypesense Cloud Free: 100k docs, 500MB RAM. Growth $40/mo (500k docs, 2GB). Meilisearch Cloud Free 100k docs; $30/mo 1M docs. Algolia Free: 10k records, 1M ops/mo; Growth $250/mo (100k records + $1.50/1k ops over). Elastic Cloud smallest $16/mo (1GB). Self-host ~$10-12/mo VPS cost. Overage: $10/100k extra docs.
Secrets Management for DB Credentials (Vault, Secrets Manager)
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsInfisical Cloud Free: 1000 secrets, 5 members. Pro $19/mo 5 seats unlimited secrets. Doppler Free: 100 secrets, 5 users. AWS Secrets: $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k API calls. HCP Vault: $0.08/vCPU-hr (~$58/mo cluster) + storage. Overage: $0.40/secret extra.
Serverless Cache / Global Key-Value (Momento, KV)
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsMomento Free: 50GB transfer, 50k ops/day, 5 req/sec. Paid $0.15/GB transfer + $0.50/M ops. Workers KV Free: 1GB, 100k reads/day, 1k writes/day; Paid $5/mo + $0.50/M reads + $5/M writes. Upstash Free 10k cmds/day, then $0.20/100k. Overage auto.
Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) & WAL Archiving
Copies of your data so a bug, hack, or outage doesn’t become permanent loss. Cheap insurance every serious project needs.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon Free 1d PITR, Pro includes 7d. Supabase PITR add-on $100/mo for 7-day window (8GB). RDS PITR: backup storage free up to DB size, extra $0.095/GB-mo. wal-g to R2: $15/TB storage + minimal API calls. Overage: cross-region PITR $0.021/GB.
Read Replicas & Read Scaling
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon replica compute $0.16/compute-hr same as primary (~$12/mo min). Supabase read replica $50/mo (2GB). RDS replica same as primary db.t3.micro $16/mo + $0.01/GB inter-AZ. PlanetScale: 1 replica included Scaler, extra $39/region/mo. Overage: data transfer $0.09/GB.
Schema Migration Tooling (Atlas, Flyway, Liquibase)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAtlas OSS free; Cloud Team $99/mo 10 databases, $199/mo 50 dbs. Flyway Community free; Teams $350/mo ~$3.5k/yr; Enterprise $800/mo ~$9.5k/yr. Bytebase Community free; Pro $70/mo per instance (10 seats). Overage: $20/user/mo extra.
Query Performance Monitoring & Slow Query Insights
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitspganalyze Free: 1 server. Scale $349/mo/server (volume $149/mo for 10). Datadog DBM $70.80 per 100 normalized API hours (~$71/mo per host) + Infra $18/host. New Relic Free 100GB ingest; Pro $49/user/mo + $0.30/GB ingest over. Self pghero free + $5/mo hosting.
Data Transfer / ETL / CDC Ingest (DMS, Airbyte, Fivetran)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAirbyte OSS free + $10/mo VPS. Airbyte Cloud Free: $0 trial 1M credits; Teams $2.50/credit (1M rows ~1 credit). Fivetran Starter $100/mo + $0.50/M MAR (monthly active rows). AWS DMS Serverless $0.036/vCPU-hr + $0.21/GB log + $0.115/GB storage. Estuary Free 100GB, Paid $0.10/GB after.
Edge / Global Read Cache for DB (Hyperdrive, Turso, LiteFS)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsHyperdrive Free Beta 100k queries/day; Paid $5/mo includes 1M queries + $0.50/M after. Turso Free: 500 DBs, 9GB storage, 500M rows read/mo. Scaler $29/mo (24GB, 750M rows) + $12/100M rows over + $0.15/GB storage over. D1 Free: 5M reads/day, Paid $5/mo + $0.50/M reads.
Managed OLAP / Columnar / Time-Series DB (ClickHouse, TimescaleDB)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsTimescale Free 500MB, Basic $24/mo 8GB + $2/GB over. ClickHouse Cloud Dev $20/mo 300GB storage + $0.22/vCPU-hr, Prod $200/mo min 1TB included. Tinybird Free 1000 req/min; Growth $39/mo 100GB. Redshift Serverless Free 32hrs, then $0.36/RPU-hr (~$50/mo min) + $24/TB-mo storage. Snowflake $20/TB + compute $2/credit.
High Availability / Multi-AZ Failover (Patroni, Stolon)
Scheduling, availability, and booking logic. Core to any appointment or reservation product.Pricing & free-tier limitsRDS Multi-AZ single-standby 2x DB cost: db.t3.medium Multi-AZ $90/mo (vs $45 single). Aurora Multi-AZ $0.12/vACU-hr x2 AZ ~$230/mo min. Aiven HA Business $70/mo (1GB RAM) HA 2 nodes. Self Patroni cost 2x VMs ~$12/mo + etcd $5/mo. Overage: cross-AZ traffic $0.01/GB.
Encryption at Rest (KMS / AES-256)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon/Supabase encryption at rest included free. AWS KMS: Free 20k requests/mo, then $1/key/mo + $0.03/10k requests. S3 SSE-S3 free, SSE-KMS $1/key + requests. GCP KMS $1/key version/mo + $0.03/10k. Overage: $0.03/10k ops.
Audit Logging / WORM & Immutable Audit Logs
Controls who can do what inside your admin tooling. Limits blast radius if an account is compromised.Pricing & free-tier limitspgaudit OSS free + storage R2 $15/TB. Better Stack Log $8/mo 1GB/day retention 3d. Datadog Log $0.10/GB ingest + $1.70/M log events retention. CloudTrail first copy free, Lake $0.25/GB ingest + $0.023/GB storage. S3 Object Lock WORM storage $0.02/GB-mo Glacier + lock free. Overage $0.10/GB extra.
Replication & Multi-Region Active-Active (Aurora Global, DynamoDB Global)
Runs in multiple regions for speed and resilience. Enterprise-grade reliability and the hardest to retrofit.Pricing & free-tier limitsAurora Global: Primary $0.12/vACU-hr + Secondary $0.12/vACU-hr + $0.20/GB cross-region data (~$300/mo min for 2 regions). DynamoDB Global Tables $1.875/M replicated WRU + storage per region $0.25/GB. Atlas Global $95/mo/cluster min + inter-region $0.14/GB. Self Bucardo free + VM cost.
Auto-scaling Storage & Compute (Aurora Serverless v2, Neon Autoscale)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon Autoscale: Free scales 0-1CU, Pro $19/mo + compute $0.16/hr per CU active + storage $1.50/GB-mo. Aurora Serverless v2: $0.12/ACU-hr (scale 0.5-128) min 0.5 ACU ~$43/mo always-on + storage $0.10/GB + IO $0.20/M. Cosmos DB Autoscale RU: $0.08/100 RU/s + storage. Overage: compute spikes billed per second.
Private Networking / VPC Peering / PrivateLink for DB
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsTailscale Free 100 devices. Starter $7/user/mo. AWS VPC Peering $0.01/GB inter-AZ, $0.02/GB inter-region. PrivateLink $0.01/hr + $0.01/GB processed ($7.20/mo + data). Neon Business VPC $85/mo includes private. Supabase Team $599/mo includes VPC. Overage: $0.01/GB data processing.
Performance Benchmarking & Load Testing (sysbench, pgbench, k6)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitssysbench/pgbench free local ~$5/mo VM cost. k6 OSS free. k6 Cloud Free: 50 tests/mo. Pro $59/mo includes 200 tests + 3k VUs. Grafana Cloud Pro $29/mo + $0.01/VU-hr over. Datadog CI Visibility $12/host + DBM $70/100 API-hr. Overage: $59/100 extra test runs.
CDN for Object Storage & Asset Delivery
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsR2 + Cloudflare CDN: Free tier 10GB + unlimited egress via CDN free. Paid $15/TB storage + CDN free. CloudFront Free: 1TB transfer, 10M req/mo 12mo; then $0.085/GB first 10TB + $0.01/10k req. BunnyCDN $1/TB NA/EU + $0.005/GB over (min $1/mo). Fastly Free 1TB, Starter $50/mo + $0.085/GB after.
Lifecycle & Archival - Glacier, Intelligent Tiering, WORM
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsS3 Intelligent-Tiering: $0.0025/1000 objects monitoring + $23/TB frequent tier, $12.80/TB infrequent. Glacier Instant $4/TB-mo + $0.03/1k. Glacier Flexible $3.6/TB-mo + $0.03/5% retrieval free. Deep Archive $0.99/TB-mo + $0.025/1k restore. B2 $6/TB + lifecycle free. Overage: retrieval $0.02/GB.
Disaster Recovery & Cross-Region Backups
Copies of your data so a bug, hack, or outage doesn’t become permanent loss. Cheap insurance every serious project needs.Pricing & free-tier limitsRDS Cross-region automated backup $0.095/GB-mo storage + $0.021/GB transfer. S3 Cross-region replication $0.02/GB + destination storage $23/TB. Litestream self DR to R2 $15/TB + compute $5/mo. Veeam $40/workload/mo. Overage: $0.02/GB transfer out.
Database Proxy / Connection Multiplexer (RDS Proxy, PgCat, Odyssey)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsRDS Proxy: $0.015/vCPU-hr per underlying DB vCPU ($21.60/mo per 2 vCPU). With HA double. Odyssey/PgCat OSS free + VM $8/mo. Prisma Accelerate Pro $79/mo for 10M requests. PgCat Cloud $99/mo 4vCPU. Overage: $0.015/extra vCPU-hr.
Compliance - SOC2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, ISO27001
Keeps you secure and compliant with regulations. Required for enterprise customers and handling sensitive data.Pricing & free-tier limitsVanta: Starter $8k/year ($667/mo) for 20 controls, Growth $20k/yr ($1667/mo) up to SOC2+ISO. Drata $12k/yr Team + $2k per framework. RDS HIPAA eligible no extra charge, BAA required. Supabase SOC2 included Team $599/mo. Neon SOC2 Business $85/mo. Audit storage compliance $50/mo logs.
DB Firewall / Data Masking / Row-Level & Column-Level Security (RLS/CLS)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsPostgres RLS free built-in. Supabase RLS included free. Cyral 25% of DB cost approx $500/mo per DB cluster. DataSunrise $350/mo per DB instance. Imperva DB Firewall $7500/mo per gateway + $1k/DB. AWS Database Activity Streams $0.50/M activities. Overage: $0.10/1000 masked queries.
Distributed SQL / NewSQL (CockroachDB, Spanner, Yugabyte)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsCockroach Serverless Free: 10GB storage, 100M RUs/mo. Standard $0.50/M RUs + $0.35/GB storage (~$100/mo for 100GB active). Dedicated $0.40/vCPU-hr (~$288/mo per vCPU) + $0.25/GB. Spanner Free trial $300 credits; Paid $0.90/node-hr (~$650/mo 1 node 1000 PU) + $0.30/GB storage + $0.20/M reads + $0.90/M writes. Aurora DSQL $0.80/M DQL + $1.50/M DML.
Graph / Vector Search Extension (pgvector, pg_graph, Neo4j Aura)
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitspgvector OSS free self; Supabase Free 500MB vector storage. Pinecone Free: 1M vectors, 1 pod; Starter $70/mo (2M vectors). Qdrant Free 1GB, Standard $25/mo per cluster (1GB RAM, 10GB). Upstash Vector Free 100k vectors, Paid $10/mo 100k vectors + 10k queries/day. Neo4j Aura Free 200k nodes; Pro $65/mo 1GB RAM. Overage $0.10/100k vector ops.
Change Data Capture (CDC) - Debezium, DMS CDC, pglogical
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsDebezium OSS free + Kafka VM $15/mo. Estuary Free 100GB CDC/month, Paid $0.10/GB after. Confluent Cloud Free $300 trial, Basic $100/mo + $1.50/GB ingress + $0.30/hr CKU. AWS DMS CDC Serverless $0.036/vCPU-hr (~$26/mo per vCPU) + logs $0.21/GB. Fivetran CDC Starter $120/mo + $0.60/M MAR.
KMS with HSM, BYOK & Envelope Encryption
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS KMS $1/key/mo + $0.03/10k requests (free 20k). CloudHSM $1.45/hr per HSM (~$1050/mo per cluster) + $0.45/hr backup. GCP Cloud HSM $1.50/key version + $0.03/10k + HSM $1.45/hr (~$1050/mo). Thales Luna $1.5k/mo per HSM. Neon BYOK Enterprise $400/mo extra. Overage: HSM ops $0.03/10k after free.
Cost Optimization & FinOps - Reserved, Graviton, Storage Autoscaling
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsRDS Graviton saves 20% vs Intel: db.r7g.large $0.23/hr vs db.r6g $0.29 (~$165/mo vs $210). RDS Reserved 1yr all upfront 40% off ~$100/mo large vs $210 on-demand. Vantage Free for <$50/mo AWS spend; Pro $100/mo + $1k/mo for large. Kubecost Free 1 cluster; Teams $500/mo cluster. Savings: scale-to-zero saves ~70% dev DB cost Neon.
Zero-Downtime Major Version Upgrades & Blue/Green Deployments
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon branching upgrade free included, Blue/Green test branch $0 + compute $0.16/hr active (~$5 per test). RDS Blue/Green: Green env same cost as prod for duration (e.g., db.r6g.large $0.29/hr doubled during upgrade ~$0.58/hr for 1hr = $0.58). PlanetScale Deploy Requests Free in Scaler $39/mo. Aiven Blue/Green included Pro $200/mo. Overage: extra replica compute $0.16/hr during window.
How this enterprise database and data storage checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a enterprise database and data storage build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.