# RocksDB vs Upstash

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Upstash

| Attribute | RocksDB | Upstash |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 60.1 (47% (low)) | 73.3 (72% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 80 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 2,684 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 32,198 | - |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 589 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"An embeddable C++ database library optimized for high-performance storage and retrieval on flash drives and RAM, supporting workloads from application caching to multi-terabyte data storage with configurable write and read performance tradeoffs. It is indexed under Key-Value Stores.","source":"https://rocksdb.org","question":"What is RocksDB?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"RocksDB is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the GPL-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://rocksdb.org","question":"Is RocksDB free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"RocksDB supports Linux. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://rocksdb.org","question":"What platforms does RocksDB support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. RocksDB can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://rocksdb.org","question":"Can RocksDB be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. RocksDB is published under the GPL-2.0 licence, a copyleft licence, so check its terms before embedding it in a closed-source product. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb","question":"Is RocksDB open source?","confidence":0.67}]` | `[{"answer":"A cloud platform offering serverless Redis, vector databases, message queues, and workflow orchestration designed for developers building serverless applications, with usage-based and fixed-rate pricing options. It is indexed under Key-Value Stores.","source":"https://upstash.com/blog/aws-elasticache-pricing-explained-2026-full-cost-breakdown","question":"What is Upstash?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Upstash offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $10 per month. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://upstash.com/blog/aws-elasticache-pricing-explained-2026-full-cost-breakdown","question":"Is Upstash free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Upstash supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://upstash.com/blog/aws-elasticache-pricing-explained-2026-full-cost-breakdown","question":"What platforms does Upstash support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Upstash, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://upstash.com/blog/aws-elasticache-pricing-explained-2026-full-cost-breakdown","question":"Can Upstash be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 11 integrations for Upstash, including Cloudflare Workers, Auth0, MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Debezium, JDBC and FluentBit, plus 3 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://upstash.com/blog/aws-elasticache-pricing-explained-2026-full-cost-breakdown","question":"What does Upstash integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR for Upstash. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Upstash not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://upstash.com/blog/redis-new-pricing","question":"What security certifications does Upstash have?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Upstash is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States.","source":"https://upstash.com/blog/aws-elasticache-pricing-explained-2026-full-cost-breakdown","question":"Where is Upstash available?","confidence":0.5}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | RocksDB is a library for integrating database functionality into applications, designed to persist large volumes of data with careful attention to balancing write throughput, read latency, and space efficiency. It supports parallel processing and is optimized for flash storage environments. | A cloud platform offering serverless Redis, vector databases, message queues, and workflow orchestration designed for developers building serverless applications, with usage-based and fixed-rate pricing options. |
| features.capabilities | `{"clustering":"single_node","deployment":"embedded","consistency":"strong","persistence":"append_log","eviction_ttl":true,"storage_tier":"persistent","licence_class":"copyleft","multi_threaded":true,"data_structures":"kv_only"}` | `{"ann_index":"HNSW","clustering":"replicated","deployment":"managed","serverless":true,"consistency":"strong","persistence":"durable","eviction_ttl":true,"storage_tier":"persistent","transactions":"multi_exec","hybrid_search":true,"licence_class":"proprietary","multi_tenancy":true,"product_class":"dedicated_dbms","wire_protocol":"resp","full_text_bm25":true,"multi_threaded":false,"pubsub_streams":true,"data_structures":"rich_types","distance_metrics":"cosine","horizontal_scale":"sharded_distributed","redis_api_compat":"full","metadata_filtering":"pre_filter"}` |
| integrations.count | - | 6 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"Cloudflare Workers"},{"name":"Auth0"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"Debezium"},{"name":"JDBC"},{"name":"FluentBit"},{"name":"Drizzle","native":true,"category":"orm","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Vercel AI SDK","native":false,"category":"ai","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Redis protocol clients","native":true,"direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Vercel","native":false},{"name":"Aiven","native":true}]` |
| language.primary | C++ | - |
| license.spdx | GPL-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"linux":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://rocksdb.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T21:39:20.137Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free forever","features":["No replication","Single database","Limited throughput"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"30 MB database with no credit card required","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"storage":"30 MB","throughput":"100 ops/sec","connections":"30"}},{"free":false,"name":"Essentials","summary":"$5/month (250 MB) to $216/month (12 GB)","features":["Predefined database sizes (250 MB to 12 GB)","Bandwidth and throughput limits per tier","Optional high availability","Flex tier with reduced throughput"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":5,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"kind":"fixed","amount":216,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Shared, fixed-price tier with predefined database sizes","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"$200/month minimum + $0.014/hour usage-based billing","features":["Unlimited memory","Dedicated VPC infrastructure","Multiple databases per subscription","Active-Active multi-region writes","Auto-tiering","Private connectivity"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":200,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.014,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Dedicated infrastructure with unlimited memory and pay-as-you-go billing","contactSales":false}],"summary":"Free tier (30 MB), Essentials from $5/month, Pro from $200/month","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://upstash.com/blog/redis-cloud-pricing-in-2026-plans-costs-and-real-examples","retrievedAt":"2026-10-06T11:29:25.190Z","startingPrice":{"amount":5,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | free | low |
| pricing.starting_price | - | `{"amount":5,"currency":"USD"}` |
| pricing.transparent | - | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 21 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v11.8.1","date":"2026-08-07T17:30:50Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v11.1.2","date":"2026-06-25T01:05:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v11.1.1","date":"2026-04-29T21:42:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v11.0.4","date":"2026-04-07T22:14:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.0.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.10.1","date":"2026-02-02T19:07:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.10.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v8.11.5","date":"2026-01-21T17:25:14Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.11.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.9.1","date":"2026-01-06T03:41:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.8.3","date":"2026-01-06T03:36:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.8.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.7.5","date":"2025-10-22T21:41:35Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.7.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.6.2","date":"2025-10-22T17:48:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.6.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.5.1","date":"2025-08-11T15:38:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.4.2","date":"2025-07-11T00:32:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.2.1","date":"2025-04-29T21:06:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.1.3","date":"2025-04-14T20:50:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.1.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v9.11.2","date":"2025-03-29T21:45:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.11.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v10.0.1","date":"2025-03-31T18:29:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.0.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v9.10.0","date":"2025-01-02T18:31:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.10.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v9.9.3","date":"2024-12-17T18:06:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.9.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v9.8.4","date":"2024-12-03T21:25:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.8.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/releases/tag/v9.7.4","date":"2024-11-01T16:39:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.7.4"}]` | - |
| reliability.sla_pct | - | 99.99 |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.hipaa | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7.1 | - |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=org.rocksdb%3Arocksdbjni&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (Key-Value Stores)

| Capability | RocksDB | Upstash |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Storage** |  |  |
| Storage tier | Persistent | Persistent |
| Persistence | Append-only log | Fully durable |
| Data structures | KV-only | Rich types |
| **Protocol** |  |  |
| Wire protocol | - | RESP (Redis) |
| **Distribution** |  |  |
| Clustering | Single-node | Replicated |
| Consistency | Strong | Strong |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Eviction / TTL policies | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-threaded | ✓ | ✗ |
| Pub/Sub / streams | - | ✓ |
| Transactions / atomic ops | - | MULTI-EXEC |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Embedded | Managed |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Copyleft | Proprietary |
| **Compatibility** |  |  |
| Redis API compatibility | - | Full |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-15T21:26:51.922Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*