Elastic vs Apollo GraphQL Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Elastic pricing | Apollo GraphQL pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Custom | $5/mo |
| Number of plans | 3 | 4 |
| Free plan | — | |
| Free trial | — | |
| Pricing model | usage-based | usage-based |
Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →
Elasticsearch
- Build search and vector database applications.
- Serverless
- Hosted
- Self-managed
Elastic Observability
- Monitor health and resolve issues for apps and infrastructure.
- Serverless
- Hosted
- Self-managed
Elastic Security
- Protect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats.
- Serverless
- Hosted
- Self-managed
Free
- GraphOS - Apollo's complete API management platform
- Supports any GraphQL API
- Self-hosted GraphOS Router (limited to 60 requests per minute)
- Built-in support for GraphQL Federation, Connectors, Response Caching, Federated Subscriptions, and more.
Developer
- GraphOS - Apollo's complete API management platform
- Supports any GraphQL API
- Self-hosted GraphOS Router
- Built-in support for GraphQL Federation, Connectors, Response Caching, Federated Subscriptions, and more.
Standard
- GraphOS - Apollo's complete API management platform
- Supports any GraphQL API
- Self-hosted GraphOS Router
- Built-in support for GraphQL Federation, Connectors, Response Caching, Federated Subscriptions, and more.
- Schema Proposals - Collaboration and approval workflows
- Single sign-on (SSO)
Enterprise
- GraphOS - Apollo's complete API management platform
- Supports any GraphQL API
- Self-hosted GraphOS Router
- Built-in support for GraphQL Federation, Connectors, Response Caching, Federated Subscriptions, and more.
- Schema Proposals - Collaboration and approval workflows
- Single sign-on (SSO)
- Audit logging
- Custom MSA
- (Add-on) Premium Support Packages
- (Add-on) Professional Services Packages
Elastic vs Apollo GraphQL FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Apollo GraphQL has a free plan. Elastic doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a usage-based model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Elastic: Elastic sits in the premium-to-enterprise range of the search and observability space, competing with Datadog, Splunk, and OpenSearch-based alternatives. They're not trying to win on price — they're positioning against Splunk on flexibility and against Datadog on breadth across search, observability, and security in one platform. Apollo GraphQL: Apollo sits in the middle-to-premium zone — cheap to start (basically free until you're pushing real traffic), but as the go-to GraphQL federation layer, they can charge a premium once you're locked into their supergraph tooling. They're not competing on price so much as on being the default infrastructure choice for teams already running GraphQL at scale.
Still deciding? See the best Elastic alternatives or the best Apollo GraphQL alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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