Guided scenario
Managed databases for startups
A startup needs production-grade durability and uptime without hiring a DBA or babysitting an engine. This shortlist orders managed databases by a free tier noted at last review, serverless or auto-scaling behavior, and a low entry price. Weigh the engine against your workload, open-source roots for portability, and how billing tracks usage.
Aiven
aiven.io
Aiven is a Helsinki-founded managed data platform that runs open-source data infrastructure (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Apache Kafka, ClickHouse, OpenSearch, Valkey) as a service in your choice of cloud and region across AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure.
Amazon DynamoDB
aws.amazon.com/dynamodb
Amazon DynamoDB is AWS's fully managed, serverless NoSQL key-value and document database designed for high throughput and single-digit-millisecond latency at scale.
Amazon RDS
aws.amazon.com/rds
Amazon RDS is AWS's managed relational database service, handling provisioning, patching, backups, and scaling so teams can run relational databases without operating the servers.
Azure Cosmos DB
azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/cosmos-db
Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft's globally distributed, multi-model NoSQL database with turnkey multi-region replication, the Azure peer of Amazon DynamoDB.
Azure SQL Database
azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-sql/database
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's fully managed PaaS database built on the SQL Server engine, the Azure peer of Amazon RDS and Google Cloud SQL.
CockroachDB
www.cockroachlabs.com
CockroachDB is a distributed, PostgreSQL-compatible SQL database built for horizontal scale, strong consistency, and fault tolerance across regions and clouds.
Google Cloud SQL
cloud.google.com/sql
Google Cloud SQL is Google Cloud's managed relational database service, automating provisioning, patching, backups, and replication for teams running databases on GCP.
MongoDB Atlas
www.mongodb.com/atlas
MongoDB Atlas is the managed cloud service for MongoDB's document database, handling deployment, scaling, and operations across multiple clouds.
Neon
neon.tech
Neon is a serverless PostgreSQL platform that separates storage from compute and adds database branching and scale-to-zero, so idle databases consume no compute.
PlanetScale
planetscale.com
PlanetScale is a managed, MySQL-compatible database platform built on Vitess, the horizontal-scaling technology originally developed at YouTube.
Redis Cloud
redis.io/cloud
Redis Cloud is the managed service for Redis, the in-memory data store widely used for caching, sessions, queues, and real-time data.
Showing 12 of 13 tools in this scenario
Pairs well with
Tools commonly used alongside this setup. Chosen editorially, not ranked.
Airbyte
ETL / Data Pipelines
Airbyte is an open-source data integration platform with one of the largest connector catalogs, available both self-hosted and as a managed cloud service. It targets data teams that want open, extensible pipelines following an ELT model with change data capture (CDC) support. The platform is open-source and free to self-host, while Airbyte Cloud is a managed option billed by credit and usage, with a trial available. Its broad catalog includes many community-maintained connectors, giving teams flexibility in sources and destinations. Airbyte carries SOC2 and ISO27001 compliance.
Chronosphere
Monitoring & APM
Chronosphere is an observability platform built for cloud-native and Kubernetes environments, with a particular focus on controlling the cost of metrics data at scale. Founded in 2019 and compatible with Prometheus and OpenTelemetry, it covers APM, infrastructure monitoring, and log management for teams operating very large deployments. Pricing is enterprise and quote-based with no free tier, placing it in the premium tier. While its origins trace to the open-source M3 project, the platform itself is proprietary and closed-source, and it holds SOC2 and ISO27001 compliance.
Amazon Redshift
Data Warehouses
Amazon Redshift is AWS's managed data warehouse for running analytics across large datasets, tightly integrated with the AWS ecosystem. It targets teams analyzing data on AWS and offers both provisioned clusters and a serverless option, with RA3 nodes separating storage from compute. Pricing is usage based and placed in the premium tier, with trial credits for new accounts rather than a perpetual free tier. The service is proprietary and AWS-only, so it is not open-source, self-hostable, or multi-cloud. Redshift carries SOC2, ISO27001, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS compliance.