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
- 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.
