MotherDuck vs Aiven Pricing (2026)

How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.

MotherDuck pricing Aiven pricing
Starts at $250/mo $5/mo
Number of plans 3 6
Free plan
Free trial
Pricing model hybrid usage-based

Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →

Lite

$0/mo
  • Up to 3 internal active users and 2 service accounts
  • 10 GB free storage
  • 10 hrs Pulse compute per month included
  • Pulse instances only
  • Role-based access control (preset roles)
  • Guides: Shared context for better AI agent performance
  • Community support

Business

Popular
$250/mo
  • Up to 10 internal active users and unlimited service accounts
  • 5 instance types and read-scaling replicas
  • Flights: agent-native data pipelines
  • Guides: Shared context for better AI agent performance
  • 90-day snapshot retention
  • Query history
  • Role-based access control (preset and custom roles)
  • Support from MotherDuck experts
  • 99.9% availability SLA

Enterprise

Custom
  • Unlimited internal active users and service accounts
  • Fixed-cost capacity pricing
  • AWS PrivateLink connectivity
  • IP allowlisting
  • HIPAA BAA

Free

$0/mo
  • 1 dedicated VM
  • 1 CPU per VM
  • 1 GB RAM per VM
  • 1 GB total storage
  • Cannot select a specific cloud or region
  • No integrations or connection pooling

Developer

$5/mo
  • 1 dedicated VM
  • 1 CPU per VM
  • 1 GB RAM per VM
  • 8 GB total storage
  • Cannot select a specific cloud or region
  • No integrations or connection pooling

Hobbyist

$12/mo
  • 1 dedicated VM
  • 1 CPU per VM
  • 1 GB RAM per VM
  • 8 GB total storage

Startup

$75/mo
  • 1 dedicated VM
  • 2-32 CPU per VM
  • 4-192 GB RAM per VM
  • 80 GB-11 TB total storage
  • 99.99% uptime SLA

Business

$180/mo
  • 2 dedicated VM
  • 2-32 CPU per VM
  • 4-192 GB RAM per VM
  • 80 GB-11 TB total storage

Premium

$270/mo
  • 3 dedicated VM
  • 2-32 CPU per VM
  • 4-192 GB RAM per VM
  • 80 GB-11 TB total storage

MotherDuck vs Aiven FAQ

Which one is cheaper?
Aiven is the cheaper option, starting at $5/mo vs $250/mo for MotherDuck.
Can I use either one for free?
Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
How do they charge?
Different approach here. MotherDuck uses hybrid pricing, while Aiven goes with usage-based. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
Which one is a better deal?
Depends on what you need. MotherDuck: Sitting in the middle of the modern data warehouse pack — pricier than pure open-source DuckDB setups you'd self-host, but cheaper and lighter-weight than Snowflake or BigQuery for teams that don't need massive distributed compute. They're courting teams who want warehouse power without warehouse overhead or price tags. Aiven: Aiven sits mid-to-premium compared to raw cloud-native options like RDS or Cloud SQL, trading lower absolute cost for a fully managed, multi-cloud abstraction layer. They're chasing teams who want Postgres (or Kafka, ClickHouse, etc.) without being locked into one hyperscaler, not teams purely hunting rock-bottom price.

Still deciding? See the best MotherDuck alternatives or the best Aiven alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.

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