Quick answer
Cloudflare D1 - Cloudflare D1 caps its free plan by rows read and written per day. Prisma caps its free plan by operations per month. Prisma's free plan has 2 GB of storage and 50 databases, and it needs no credit card.
How the free tiers compare
D1 on the Workers Free plan allows 5 million rows read a day, 100,000 rows written a day and 5 GB of total storage across 10 databases. Prisma's Free plan includes 200k Prisma Postgres operations a month, 2 GB of storage and 50 databases. It also includes 1M Prisma Compute requests a month and needs no credit card. D1 counts rows. Prisma counts queries, where one query is one operation.
Cloudflare D1 vs Prisma free tier, side by side
| Cloudflare D1FTV 46 | PrismaFTV 58 | |
|---|---|---|
| ReadsD1 counts rows. Prisma counts queries. | 5 million rows read per day | 200k operations per month |
| Writes | 100,000 rows written per day | Included in the 200k monthly operations |
| Storage | 5 GB total | 2 GB |
| Databases | 10 | 50 |
| First paid plan | Workers Paid, billed by usage | Starter - $10/mo, with 1M operations and 10 GB |
| Overage | $0.001 per million rows read and $1.00 per million rows written | $8 per million operations on Starter |
After you outgrow the free tier
D1 on Workers Paid includes the first 25 billion rows read and 50 million rows written each month. Past that, reads cost $0.001 per million and writes cost $1.00 per million. Storage past 5 GB costs $0.75 per GB-month. Each database past the first 100,000 costs $0.10 a month. Prisma Starter costs $10 a month with 1M operations and 10 GB of storage. Pro costs $49 with 10M operations and 50 GB. Business costs $129 with 50M operations and 100 GB.
Cost at real usage
| Usage | Cloudflare D1 | Prisma |
|---|---|---|
| Stay on the free planOn Prisma Free the spend limit is fixed at $0. | $0, up to 5M rows read and 100k rows written a day | $0, up to 200k operations a month |
Estimates, not quotes. Usage-based rates change - verify with the vendor's pricing page before committing.
When to pick each one
Pick Cloudflare D1 when…
- Your app already runs on Cloudflare Workers.
- You want SQLite-style storage next to your code.
- You want a large daily read allowance.
Pick Prisma when…
- You want managed Postgres with a monthly operations cap.
- You want up to 50 databases on the free plan.
- You want a spend limit fixed at $0 with no card.
Bottom line
Pick D1 if your code runs on Cloudflare Workers and you think in rows. Pick Prisma if you want Postgres, more databases and a plain monthly operations count.
Read the full listings: Cloudflare D1 and Prisma. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.