Yes, Aiven has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans. The free plan includes PostgreSQL free tier includes 1GB storage, 1GB RAM, and network costs, MySQL free tier includes 1GB storage, 1GB RAM, and network costs, and Apache Kafka free tier includes up to 250 kb/s data in and out, with retention up to 3 days.
About
Aiven is a managed open source data platform that provides hosted Kafka, PostgreSQL, MySQL, ClickHouse, OpenSearch, Valkey, Metrics, and Grafana services across major cloud providers. The platform includes a console and API for provisioning, monitoring, scaling, and managing services without handling infrastructure operations directly.
The free tier includes always-on PostgreSQL, MySQL, Apache Kafka, and OpenSearch on the same underlying infrastructure as paid plans. Published free-plan limits include 1GB storage and 1GB RAM for PostgreSQL and MySQL, up to 250 kb/s data in and out with retention up to 3 days for Kafka, and 20GB storage, 4GB RAM, and up to 20 shards for OpenSearch.
- Managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, OpenSearch
- 1GB PostgreSQL and MySQL storage
- 1GB PostgreSQL and MySQL RAM
- Up to 250 kb/s Kafka throughput
- Kafka retention up to 3 days
- 20GB OpenSearch storage
- 4GB OpenSearch RAM
- Up to 20 OpenSearch shards
- No credit card required
- No expiry date on free tier
Free Tier Value
This free tier is perpetual and does not require a credit card, but it is still capped by service-specific limits and single-node setups. Compared with the cheapest paid option at $5/month, the free offering is roughly 80% as valuable for small projects, so a reasonable buyer-side estimate is about $4/month.
What's included in the free tier
Verified
- Always-free managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Apache Kafka, and OpenSearch services.
- PostgreSQL free tier includes 1GB storage, 1GB RAM, and network costs.
- MySQL free tier includes 1GB storage, 1GB RAM, and network costs.
- Apache Kafka free tier includes up to 250 kb/s data in and out, with retention up to 3 days.
- OpenSearch free tier includes 20GB storage, 4GB RAM, and up to 20 shards.
- Managed infrastructure with monitoring included.
- Automated backups for databases included.
- Built-in durability for Kafka included.
- No credit card required to sign up.
- No trial expiry; free tier is always free.
- One free service per service type per account.
- Single-node setups only; high availability is not included.
- Upgrade to paid plans with one click and no downtime.
See Aiven pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Developer tier
- Managed PostgreSQL and MySQL
- 99.99% availability
- No hidden fees
- Upgrade from free tier with one click
Aiven Platform
- Fully managed data platform
- Runs on any cloud
- Single API and console
- No-downtime migrations
- 24/7 expert support
Pricing extracted from Aiven's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is Aiven free forever?
Yes. Aiven has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans, though the allowance typically resets each month.
Does Aiven require a credit card?
No. You can start on Aiven's free tier without entering card details.
What happens when you exceed Aiven's free tier?
You move to a paid plan. Aiven's cheapest paid plan is Developer tier at $5 / month.
What is Aiven's free tier worth?
Aiven's free tier is worth about $4.00 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 59/100. The FTV score is explained at freetier.co/ftv.
