Directus vs TigerData
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Directus and TigerData.
Quick Verdict
3.6/5
Directus
0 reviews
4.2/5
TigerData
0 reviews
TigerData is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.6). Directus wraps any SQL database with a no-code data studio, REST and GraphQL API, and file management. Open source and self-hostable. Directus Cloud is managed hosting. TigerData, from the creators of TimescaleDB, is a PostgreSQL cloud platform built for time-series and real-time analytics workloads at large scale, aimed at developers and enterprises.
Directus Open-source headless CMS and database API | TigerData PostgreSQL-native time-series database for metrics, events, and analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.6 (0 reviews) | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $30/mo |
| Best for | Development teams with existing SQL databases who want an admin UI and API layer without building one, and small organizations that qualify for free self-hosting with full data control. | Teams building observability, IoT/telemetry, financial or real-time analytics platforms who want time-series performance inside standard PostgreSQL and can run the ops model of a managed Postgres service. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ✓ | |
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | 13 AWS regions + 4 Azure regions across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and South America |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostableapi access | free tiermanaged optionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapi accessopen source |
| Visit Directus → | Visit TigerData → | |
Directus
Pros
- + Wraps any existing SQL database — no proprietary data store, no forced migration, full data ownership
- + Auto-generated REST and GraphQL APIs with granular RBAC, audit logging, webhooks, and built-in Flows automation
- + Free self-hosting under Core / Open Innovation Grant for small organizations; every release converts to GPL-3.0 after four years
- + Directus Cloud is genuinely managed: provisioning in about 90 seconds, automatic updates, scaling, and backups
- + The Studio admin UI gives non-technical editors a real interface over a relational model
- + Honest communication about licensing — the team states plainly that it is not OSI-certified open source
Cons
- - No longer OSI open source: MSCL/BSL custom licenses with a $5M total-finances commercial trigger
- - Directus Cloud is costly versus raw resources: $99/month buys 5 seats, 75,000 entries, 250,000 API requests
- - API request and entry caps on paid plans punish high-volume production workloads
- - Complex permission hierarchies and Flows have a real learning curve; self-hosted production is DevOps work
- - No published uptime SLA outside Enterprise agreements
- - Ecosystem and community smaller than Strapi's; licensing changes have churned community trust
TigerData
Pros
- + Full SQL and the PostgreSQL extension ecosystem — hypertables, continuous aggregates and 90%+ compression without a new query language
- + Published consumption pricing (compute from $30/month, storage $0.177-0.212/GB-month) with hourly metering and no instance-size lock-in
- + 17 regions across AWS and Azure with EU, US and APAC residency selectable at creation
- + Reliability productized: multi-AZ HA, PITR up to 14 days, backup retention to 180 days, cross-region restore, public SLA and status page
- + Open-source TimescaleDB escape hatch — self-hosting stays viable, which keeps pricing honest
Cons
- - Hourly compute meter bills full hours and forgotten scale-ups at the higher config are expensive
- - Serious reliability and security features (multi-node HA, 14-day PITR, SOC 2, private endpoints) gated behind Scale or Enterprise
- - PostgreSQL and time-series concepts (chunks, compression/retention policies) assumed — not a zero-ops database for non-database teams
- - Effective storage price assumes 5x compression; actual ratios are workload-dependent
- - Aiven-partnered legacy MST product carries a different (99.99%) SLA — easy to confuse with Tiger Cloud
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