What is CockroachDB used for?

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database that scales horizontally across nodes and regions, available as a fully managed cloud service. It is a good fit for running a resilient transactional database, scaling a database across regions and offloading database operations to a managed service.

How much does CockroachDB cost?

CockroachDB is a paid product with no free plan. A free trial is available. Usage-based per vCPU-hour: Standard at $0.092 and Mission Critical at $0.162 (AWS us-east-1), plus storage and add-ons. New organizations get a 30-day trial with $400 credit.

Is CockroachDB open source?

No. CockroachDB is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to CockroachDB include YDB, TiDB and Citus.

Can I self-host CockroachDB?

Yes. Although CockroachDB is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.

What are some alternatives to CockroachDB?

CockroachDB competes with Google Cloud Spanner, Amazon Aurora and PlanetScale. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source CockroachDB alternatives.

CockroachDB: features, pricing and alternatives

About CockroachDB

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database designed to keep applications running when individual machines or data centers fail. Its managed offering, CockroachDB Cloud, handles provisioning, scaling and upgrades so teams can concentrate on building applications rather than operating database infrastructure.

The cloud service advertises push-button provisioning, automatic scaling, rolling upgrades without downtime, on-demand compute and storage, and managed backups for disaster recovery. A Terraform provider and Cloud APIs automate database operations, and it connects to third-party observability and logging tools. Deployments can start small and expand across data centers and regions, and the vendor says the platform supports PCI-DSS and HIPAA applications.

CockroachDB is a commercial product with free credits for new users and flexible pricing described on the vendor's site. Besides the cloud service, the database can also be run on infrastructure you manage yourself.

Key features

Distributed SQL with horizontal scaling
Fully managed cloud service
Rolling upgrades without downtime
Managed backups for disaster recovery
Terraform provider and Cloud APIs
Multi-region deployments

Good fit for

→Running a resilient transactional database
→Scaling a database across regions
→Offloading database operations to a managed service

Tags: distributed-sql; database; cloud-database; scalability; high-availability; postgres-compatible; managed-service

CockroachDB: questions and answers

What is CockroachDB used for?: CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database that scales horizontally across nodes and regions, available as a fully managed cloud service. It is a good fit for running a resilient transactional database, scaling a database across regions and offloading database operations to a managed service.
How much does CockroachDB cost?: CockroachDB is a paid product with no free plan. A free trial is available. Usage-based per vCPU-hour: Standard at $0.092 and Mission Critical at $0.162 (AWS us-east-1), plus storage and add-ons. New organizations get a 30-day trial with $400 credit.
Is CockroachDB open source?: No. CockroachDB is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to CockroachDB include YDB, TiDB and Citus.
Can I self-host CockroachDB?: Yes. Although CockroachDB is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.
What are some alternatives to CockroachDB?: CockroachDB competes with Google Cloud Spanner, Amazon Aurora and PlanetScale. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source CockroachDB alternatives.