APIs · head to head
Basis Theory vs Tinybird
Basis Theory
APIs
Developer tokenisation platform that holds card and sensitive data inside a PCI Level 1 environment you do not operate
- From
- $995/month
- Rated
- -
Tinybird
Databases
Managed ClickHouse with a workflow that turns SQL queries into hosted HTTP APIs
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Tinybird has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Basis Theory the Starter plan is 995 US dollars a month before any volume, which is a real floor for an early stage company and puts the product out of reach of teams tokenising a few thousand records.; Tinybird it is ClickHouse underneath, so it inherits ClickHouse limits: multi-table joins degrade badly at scale, updates and deletes are expensive mutations rather than cheap operations, and a poorly chosen sorting key at table creation cannot be fixed without rebuilding the data.
- They diverge on capability: Basis Theory covers Tokenisation API, Tinybird covers Managed ClickHouse.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Basis Theory and Tinybird actually diverge.
| Attribute | Basis Theory | Tinybird |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $995/month | Free |
| Pricing model | Per month by token volume | Per month by compute and storage |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, Linux | Web, Cloud, Linux, macOS |
| Category | APIs | Databases |
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Basis Theory
- Tokenisation API
- Hosted elements
- Outbound proxy
- PCI attestation of compliance
- Processor portability
- Reactors
- Access controls and audit
- PII and PHI options
Only in Tinybird
- Managed ClickHouse
- Pipes as APIs
- Events HTTP endpoint
- Streaming connectors
- Materialized views
- Git-based workflow
- Token-scoped auth
- Observability
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Basis Theory
- A payments company that wants card on file without bringing its own infrastructure into PCI scope and paying for the assessment that followsnot Tinybird
- A merchant locked into a processor by that processor vault that wants to hold its own tokens and route to more than one acquirernot Tinybird
- A fintech collecting bank account and identity data that needs it isolated from its application database before an enterprise security reviewnot Tinybird
- A team that needs to send stored card data to a third party for a one-off integration without that data traversing its own serversnot Tinybird
Tinybird
- A SaaS product adding a per-customer usage dashboard that must render in under a second across billions of eventsnot Basis Theory
- A team building rate limiting or fraud checks that need an aggregate over the last few minutes returned inside a request cyclenot Basis Theory
- A data team offloading interactive operational dashboards from Snowflake, where per-query warehouse cost makes constant refresh untenablenot Basis Theory
- A game or ad-tech company ingesting a high-volume event stream and exposing live counters back to customers through an APInot Basis Theory
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Basis Theory
- The Starter plan is 995 US dollars a month before any volume, which is a real floor for an early stage company and puts the product out of reach of teams tokenising a few thousand records.
- Starter is limited to the US region, so a company with European data residency requirements is pushed into a quoted Scale or Enterprise agreement immediately.
- Log retention on Starter is 24 hours, which is well below what most security teams expect for a system holding cardholder data and forces an upgrade for reasons unrelated to volume.
- Migrating away means moving card data out of the vault, which requires processor and assessor involvement and is slow, so the portability argument that attracts buyers cuts against them at exit.
- An attestation of compliance covers the vendor environment, not your assessment; your assessor still decides what is in scope, and buyers occasionally discover their integration pattern pulled systems back into scope anyway.
Tinybird
- It is ClickHouse underneath, so it inherits ClickHouse limits: multi-table joins degrade badly at scale, updates and deletes are expensive mutations rather than cheap operations, and a poorly chosen sorting key at table creation cannot be fixed without rebuilding the data.
- Compute is metered per vCPU-second with overage at 0.0002 USD per second, so an inefficient query shipped to production shows up directly on the invoice rather than merely running slowly.
- Only the Enterprise tier gets horizontal scaling and dedicated infrastructure; Free, Developer and SaaS all run on shared infrastructure with vertical scaling only, which caps both isolation and headroom for anyone not on a custom contract.
- Storage is billed at 0.058 USD per gigabyte on top of compute, and egress is charged separately at 0.01 USD per gigabyte intra-cloud and 0.10 USD inter-cloud, so a high-fanout API serving many small responses accrues costs in three places at once.
- You are building on a proprietary workflow around an open database: the pipes, tokens and API layer are Tinybird specific, so leaving means keeping your data but rewriting the entire serving layer you adopted Tinybird to avoid writing.
Pricing, plan by plan
Basis Theory
$995/month- Starter$995/month
- 20,000 tokens included
- Production PCI Level 1 environment
- US region only
- Scale$undefined/month
- Quoted
- Higher token volumes
- Additional regions
- Enterprise$undefined/month
- Quoted
- Additional compliance options for PII and PHI
- Responses for 95 percent of PCI SAQ D
Tinybird
Free- FreeFree
- 0.25 vCPU on shared infrastructure
- 10 GB storage included
- 1,000 requests per day
- Developer$25/month
- 0.5 vCPU scaling to 8 vCPU
- 25 GB storage included
- Two replicas
- SaaS$undefined/month
- Up to 32 vCPU
- 500 GB storage included
- Four to sixteen threads per request
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- Unlimited vCPU and bottomless storage
- Dedicated infrastructure and private regions
- Vertical and horizontal scaling
Which should you pick?
Choose Basis Theory if
- You need tokenisation api.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android, Linux.
- You also want hosted elements.
Choose Tinybird if
- You need managed clickhouse.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Cloud, Linux, macOS.
- You also want pipes as apis.
Questions people ask
- Is Basis Theory or Tinybird better?
- Neither clearly leads. Basis Theory starts at $995/month and Tinybird at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Basis Theory or Tinybird?
- Tinybird has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $995/month for Basis Theory and Free for Tinybird.
- Does Basis Theory or Tinybird run on more platforms?
- Basis Theory runs on Web, iOS, Android, Linux. Tinybird runs on Web, Cloud, Linux, macOS.
- Can I use Tinybird for free?
- Yes. Tinybird has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Basis Theory starts at $995/month.
- What is Basis Theory best used for?
- Basis Theory is most often used for a payments company that wants card on file without bringing its own infrastructure into pci scope and paying for the assessment that follows, a merchant locked into a processor by that processor vault that wants to hold its own tokens and route to more than one acquirer, a fintech collecting bank account and identity data that needs it isolated from its application database before an enterprise security review, a team that needs to send stored card data to a third party for a one-off integration without that data traversing its own servers. Of those, a payments company that wants card on file without bringing its own infrastructure into pci scope and paying for the assessment that follows and a merchant locked into a processor by that processor vault that wants to hold its own tokens and route to more than one acquirer are not what Tinybird is typically brought in for.
- What can Basis Theory do that Tinybird cannot?
- Basis Theory covers Tokenisation API, Hosted elements, Outbound proxy, PCI attestation of compliance. Tinybird covers Managed ClickHouse, Pipes as APIs, Events HTTP endpoint, Streaming connectors.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Basis Theory: Does this make us PCI compliant?
It removes cardholder data from your systems and gives you an AOC plus documented responses for most of a SAQ D. Your assessor still determines your scope, and a careless integration can pull systems back in.
Tinybird: Is Tinybird just hosted ClickHouse?
No. The database is ClickHouse, but the product is the layer above it: publishing parameterised SQL as authenticated, rate-limited REST endpoints without writing an API server.
Basis Theory: What does it cost to start?
995 US dollars a month on Starter, including 20,000 tokens, a production PCI Level 1 environment and US hosting. Higher tiers are quoted.
Tinybird: What does it actually cost?
Free tier at 1,000 requests a day, Developer from 25 USD a month, then compute at 0.0002 USD per vCPU-second and storage at 0.058 USD per gigabyte. Higher tiers are quoted.
Basis Theory: Can we switch payment processors without re-collecting cards?
Yes, that is the main non-compliance reason to buy it. You hold the tokens and detokenise into whichever processor you route to.
Tinybird: Can I run it on my own infrastructure?
Only on Enterprise, which offers dedicated infrastructure and private regions. Lower tiers are shared multi-tenant cloud.
Basis Theory: Is data stored outside the United States?
Not on Starter, which is US only. Other regions require a Scale or Enterprise agreement.
Tinybird: Does it handle updates and deletes?
Poorly, as ClickHouse does. Design for append-only event data; frequent mutation is the wrong workload for this engine.
Related pages
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