Governance And Cataloging — small scale 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.
Data Catalog Platform
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 limitsDataHub OSS: Free unlimited assets/users self-hosted / Cloud Free: 2 users, 5k assets, 1k searches/mo / Starter $1,000/mo 10 users 50k assets / Growth $3,500/mo + $75/user. OpenMetadata OSS: Free unlimited / Cloud $1,500/mo 20 users. Atlan: Free 2 users, 10k assets / Starter $1,500/mo 10 users / Growth $3,500/mo + $75/user over 15 / Enterprise $100k-250k/yr ($8.3k-20k/mo). Alation $125k/yr min. Overage: $50 per extra 1k assets, $0.10 per extra 1k API calls.
Metadata Store (Relational DB for Catalog)
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: Free 0.5GB storage, 100hrs compute, 3 projects, 10 branches / Launch $19/mo 10GB + 300hrs + $5/GB over storage $5 per 100hrs over. Supabase Free 500MB DB, 50k MAU, 2 projects / Pro $25/mo 8GB + $0.125/GB over $0.00365/compute-hr. RDS db.t3.micro Free 750hrs 12mo / $15-75/mo t3.small-medium + $0.115/GB-mo gp3 storage $0.095/GB backup. Self-hosted Postgres $0 + $5-20 VM.
Metadata Search Index
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsMeilisearch OSS Free unlimited / Cloud Free 100k records, 10k searches/mo / Starter $30/mo 1M records 100k searches + $0.25 per 10k searches over, $0.50 per 100k docs over. Typesense OSS Free / Cloud Free 500k docs 0.5GB / $40/mo 4GB RAM 1M docs + $10/GB over. Elastic Cloud Free 14d trial / Standard $95/mo 2GB RAM 60GB storage + $0.36/hr per 8GB over $0.15/GB transfer. Algolia Free 10k records 10k req/mo / Growth $1.50 per 1k records + $0.50 per 1k searches.
Object Storage for Catalog Exports & Snapshots
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, 10M Class A ops, 10M Class B ops (S3 compatible) / Pro $5/mo included + $0.015/GB-mo over 10GB, $4.50 per 1M Class A over, $0.36 per 1M Class B over, zero egress. S3 Free Tier 5GB 12mo / Standard $0.023/GB-mo first 50TB + $0.005 per 1k PUT $0.0004 per 1k GET + $0.09/GB egress. MinIO Free unlimited self-hosted + disk cost $6/TB B2.
Secrets Management for Catalog
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 limitsInfisical OSS Free unlimited secrets self-hosted / Cloud Free 3 projects unlimited secrets, 2 envs / Starter $40/mo 10 projects + $8/project over $5 per 100k API calls over. Doppler Free 2 projects 50 secrets / Pro $20/user/mo + $5 per extra 100 secrets. Vault HCP Free dev: 25 secrets, 1 cluster / Standard $0.50/hr ~$365/mo cluster + $0.03 per 10k ops + $0.50 per 100 secrets over, $1/key.
Auth / SSO for Governance Team (Workforce)
How users sign up, log in, and are authorized. Getting roles and access control right early prevents painful rewrites.Pricing & free-tier limitsKeycloak Free unlimited users self-hosted $5-15 VM / Auth.js Free. Clerk Free 10k MAU, 1k SSO, 100 orgs / Pro $25/mo + $0.02 per MAU over 10k $0.50 per SSO over 500. Auth0 Free 25k MAU, B2B Free 100 SSO connections / B2C $35/mo 1k MAU + $0.05/MAU over / B2B $150/mo 500 MAU $0.20/MAU. Okta Free 100 MAU / $2-4/user/mo 100 min + $2.50/user SSO $2/user SCIM. Overage SSO $20/conn.
Backup for Catalog DB (WAL + Snapshots)
Copies of your data so a bug, hack, or outage doesn’t become permanent loss. Cheap insurance every serious project needs.Pricing & free-tier limitspgBackRest/WAL-G Free self-hosted + storage cost. Backblaze B2 Free 10GB / $6/TB-mo storage + $0.01/GB download free uploads. Restic Free OSS. RDS Backups Free 7d retention 100% DB size / $0.095/GB-mo snapshot storage over + $0.021/GB-mo after, PITR $0. Veeam Community Free 10 workloads / Paid $150/mo per 10 workloads + $50/TB backup storage.
Monitoring & Uptime for Catalog
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsGrafana Cloud Free 10k metrics series, 50GB logs, 50GB traces, 3 users / Pro $8/user/mo + 15k metrics included $8 per 1k series over $0.50/GB logs over. Prometheus Free self-hosted. Uptime Kuma Free unlimited monitors self-hosted. UptimeRobot Free 50 monitors 5min checks / $8/mo 200 monitors 1min. Datadog Free 5 hosts 1d / Pro $15/host/mo + $0.10/GB logs $31/host APM $1.70/M spans over. PagerDuty Free 1 user 1 escalation / $29/user/mo.
API Gateway for Catalog APIs
Controls and protects your APIs — quotas, abuse prevention, and firewalls. Important once you have real traffic or many clients.Pricing & free-tier limitsKong OSS Free self-hosted unlimited req / Konnect Free 1 runtime 2 services / Plus $250/mo 10M req + $0.50/M over $0.09/GB over. KrakenD OSS Free. Cloudflare API GW Free 1M req/mo proxied + WAF / Pro $20/mo + $5 per 10M req over. AWS API GW Free 1M req 12mo / HTTP $1.00/M req + $0.09/GB transfer over, REST $3.50/M req + cache $0.02/hr. Overage $0.50-3.50/M.
Container Orchestration for Catalog Services
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 limitsK3s/Docker Compose Free self-hosted + VM $5-20/mo Hetzner/DigitalOcean 2GB. Fly.io Free $5/mo credit 3 shared VMs 3GB / Pro $15-40/mo per 1-2GB VM $0.04/GB egress + $0.15/GB disk. Railway Free $5 credit / Pro $20/user/mo + $0.000231/vCPU-min $0.000003/GB-min ~$30/mo 0.5 vCPU. ECS Fargate $0.04048/vCPU/hr + $0.004445/GB/hr = ~$32/mo per 0.5vCPU 1GB + ALB $22. GKE Autopilot $0.10/hr cluster + $0.044/vCPU/hr $0 5GB disk free ~$35/mo.
CI/CD for Catalog Schemas & Ingestion Jobs
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Actions Free 2k Linux min/mo (public unlimited), 500MB packages / Team $4/user/mo 3k min included + $0.008/min Linux over $0.16/GB cache over. Woodpecker Free self-hosted unlimited. CircleCI Free 6k credits/wk ~1k min / $15/mo 30k credits $0.00008/credit over ($6 per 1k min). Buildkite Free 0 agents self-host / $15/agent/mo + $0.005/min over included.
Lineage Tracking (OpenLineage / Marquez)
Rates, labels, and tracking for physical goods. Needed once you actually ship products.Pricing & free-tier limitsMarquez Free self-hosted Postgres backend + $10-40/mo VM for 10k events/d. OpenLineage SDK Free 1M events/mo lib. Monte Carlo Lineage part of $2.5k/mo Starter 100 tables + $20-25 per extra table $0.10 per 1k lineage events over 1M. Atlan Lineage included in Atlan $1.5k-3.5k/mo $0 paid add-on. DataHub Cloud Lineage Free OSS / $50/mo cloud add-on for 100k edges.
Search for Catalog (Dedicated Search Service)
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsMeilisearch OSS Free self-hosted 10M docs single node / Cloud Free 100k docs 10k searches/mo / Start $30/mo 1M docs 100k searches $0.25 per 10k searches over $0.80 per 100k docs over. Typesense Cloud Free 500k docs 0.5GB / Growth $40/mo 1M docs 2GB + $15/GB over. Algolia Free 10k records 10k search req/mo / Growth $1.50 per 1k records $0.50 per 1k searches over $0.60/1k indexing ops. Elasticsearch $95/mo 2GB RAM.
Audit Logs WORM Storage (Governance Actions - Who Accessed What)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsMinIO WORM Free self-hosted unlimited retention. R2 with Object Lock Free 10GB + $0.015/GB over + $4.50/M Class A writes over. Backblaze B2 Object Lock Free 10GB / $6/TB-mo + $0.01/GB download, $0.005 per 1k writes WORM free config. S3 Object Lock $0.023/GB-mo + $0.03 per 10k WORM writes retention Governance/Compliance mode, min 1d max 100yr. Datadog Audit $0.50 per 10k events after 5k free/month. Retention $0.60/GB-mo long term.
Message Queue for Metadata Ingestion
Runs slow work (emails, exports, payouts) in the background so users don’t wait. Keeps your app snappy.Pricing & free-tier limitsRedpanda OSS Free 1GB RAM self-hosted 1B msgs limited by disk / Cloud Free $0 2GB storage 100MB ingress. NATS OSS Free unlimited. Upstash Kafka Free 10k msgs/day 256KB max / Pay-as-you-go $0.20 per 100k msgs $0.60/GB ingress $0.60/GB storage-mo $0 retention 7d. Confluent Cloud Free $400 credit 3mo / Standard $0.11/GB ingress $0.11/GB egress $0.055/GB-mo storage + $0.20/hr CKU. MSK Serverless $0.30/hr cluster + $0.10/GB in/out $0.10/GB storage.
Cache Layer for Catalog UI (Edge + Read-Through)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsValkey OSS Free self-hosted + VM $5-20. Upstash Redis Free 10k cmds/day 256MB max DB / $0.20 per 100k cmds + $0.30/GB storage after, $10/mo min for 1GB. Dragonfly OSS Free / Cloud Free $35 credit / $18/mo 1GB + $0.40 per 10k ops over. ElastiCache Serverless Free none / $0.125/GB-hr ~$90/mo per 1GB + $0.0034 per 10k ECPUs ~ $15. Momento Free 50GB transfer/mo / $0.50/GB over + $0.03 per 10k requests over.
Reverse Proxy / Ingress Controller
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 limitsCaddy/Traefik/NGINX OSS Free self-hosted + VM. Cloudflare Tunnel Free unlimited tunnels + 0 egress cost. Cloudflare Free CDN + WAF $0 / Pro $20/mo + 20 rules. NGINX Plus $2.5k/yr per instance includes support. AWS ALB $0.0225/hr + $0.008/LCU-hr ~$22/mo + $0.75/hr WAF. Overage LCU $0.008/hr per 1k req.
Log Aggregation for Governance Stack
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsLoki OSS Free self-hosted + $6/TB storage B2 / Grafana Cloud Logs Free 50GB/mo $0 30d / $0.50/GB over after 50GB. Better Stack Free 1GB/day 3d retention 3 sources / Team $24/mo 20GB 30d retention + $2.50/GB over. Datadog Logs $0.10/GB ingest + $0.10/GB 15d retention + $1.70 per 1M scanned in rehydrate, free none. New Relic Free 100GB/mo ingest / $0.30/GB over + $0.00 retention 30d.
DNS & TLS for Catalog Domain (Custom Domain)
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare DNS Free unlimited queries + DDoS + Free TLS Universal 90d auto-renew / Pro $20/mo + WAF 20 rules. Let's Encrypt Free 100 certs/domain/wk 50/wk per domain. Porkbun Domain $10/yr .com renewal $10-12/ yr + free WHOIS. Route 53 $0.50/hosted zone/mo + $0.40/M queries (first 1B) + $0.60/M geo queries, ACM Public Free Private CA $400/mo CA + $0.75 per cert over 1k. NS1 Free 500k queries/mo / $100/mo 10M queries.
How this small scale governance and cataloging checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a small scale governance and cataloging 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.