Tigris vs SurrealDB
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Tigris and SurrealDB.
Quick Verdict
4.1/5
Tigris
0 reviews
3.6/5
SurrealDB
0 reviews
Tigris is rated higher (4.1 vs 3.6). Tigris is a globally distributed, S3-compatible object storage service with zero egress fees on every tier. Standing free tier (5 GB storage, 10k/100k requests monthly). Built by ex-Uber storage engineers; backs Fly.io storage and AI platforms. SurrealDB is a multi-model database that handles relational, document, graph, and full-text queries in a single database. Schema-optional, built-in auth, and real-time subscriptions.
Tigris Globally distributed S3-compatible object storage with zero egress fees | SurrealDB Multi-model database with built-in real-time sync and WebSocket support | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.1 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.6 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | AI/ML teams and developers whose data is read from many regions and clouds — especially where egress fees dominate — who want S3 compatibility without hyperscaler lock-in | Teams building real-time, multi-model applications that would otherwise combine a document database, a search engine and a graph store |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 0 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | 5 GB✓ | 1 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | — | — |
| Data-center count | — | 3 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €0.00 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ✓ | |
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | AWS Ireland (aws-euw1), AWS US East N. Virginia (aws-use1), AWS US West Oregon (aws-usw2) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tiers3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi access | free tieropen sourceself hostableapi access |
| Visit Tigris → | Visit SurrealDB → | |
Tigris
Pros
- + Zero egress fees on every tier and every direction — regional, cross-region, and internet
- + Full published rate card (plus a machine-readable pricing page) with identical pricing across geographies
- + Standing free tier with no card: 5 GB Standard storage, 10,000 Class A and 100,000 Class B requests monthly
- + S3-compatible API (>90% coverage) with a zero-downtime migration path — low switching cost
- + Fork, snapshot, soft delete and object events at no separate enablement cost; SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA BAA available
Cons
- - Young vendor (founded 2022, Series A stage) holding the durability of your data layer
- - No public uptime SLA outside Enterprise contracts
- - Single product line — no compute, CDN, or identity integration beyond S3-style access keys
- - Cold-tier minimum retention billing (30/90 days) can surprise lifecycle-driven workloads
- - Object notification events cost from the first event ($0.01 per 1,000)
SurrealDB
Pros
- + One engine for relational, document, graph, time-series and geospatial data, plus full-text and vector search
- + Transparent published rate table with a real free instance (0.25 vCPU, 1 GB memory, 1 GB storage)
- + Hourly billing keeps development and prototype instances cheap
- + Granular permissions at table, document and field level defined in the schema
- + Self-hostable under BSL 1.1 with open-source (Apache 2.0 / MIT) SDKs as an exit path
Cons
- - Young database: 1.0 in 2023 and the storage engine is still being replaced
- - Only three AWS regions (Ireland, N. Virginia, Oregon) — nothing in APAC
- - Smaller ecosystem, tooling and hiring pool than PostgreSQL or MongoDB
- - Scale plan requires a three-node minimum; several advertised features are still marked coming soon
- - Custom SLAs only at Enterprise tier; backup retention policy for free instances is ambiguous in the docs
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