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Databases · head to head

Canary Labs vs RisingWave

Canary Labs logo

Canary Labs

Databases

Industrial process historian with published per-tag pricing and no client licence fees

From
$3000/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
RisingWave logo

RisingWave

Databases

Streaming database that maintains incremental materialised views in SQL instead of Flink jobs

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only RisingWave has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Canary Labs pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error.; RisingWave anything that does not fit SQL, such as custom windowing, complex event processing or heavy stateful logic, still needs Flink, so RisingWave often adds a system rather than removing one.
  • They diverge on capability: Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, RisingWave covers SQL materialised views.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Canary Labs and RisingWave actually diverge.

Attributes where Canary Labs and RisingWave differ
AttributeCanary LabsRisingWave
Starting price$3000/yearFree
Pricing modelPer tag band per yearPer RisingWave Unit hour
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWindows, WebLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Databases).

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 Canary Labs

  • Loss-less compression
  • Unlimited clients
  • Store and forward
  • Views service
  • Sparkplug B
  • Calculation engine
  • Axiom
  • ODBC and REST

Only in RisingWave

  • SQL materialised views
  • Postgres wire compatibility
  • Object storage state
  • Source connectors
  • Sink connectors
  • Iceberg tables
  • Watermarks and windowing
  • User defined functions

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Canary Labs

  • A manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a PI System enterprise agreementnot RisingWave
  • A water utility replacing SCADA-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next SCADA replacementnot RisingWave
  • An Ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboardsnot RisingWave
  • A plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an auditnot RisingWave

RisingWave

  • A team with Kafka topics that needs continuously fresh aggregates for a dashboard without standing up a Flink clusternot Canary Labs
  • A fraud or risk team maintaining rolling counters and joins across event streams expressed as SQL viewsnot Canary Labs
  • A company doing Postgres CDC into a real-time denormalised view for search or servingnot Canary Labs
  • An analytics group that wants streaming results landed directly into Apache Iceberg without a separate writer jobnot Canary Labs

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Canary Labs

  • Pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error.
  • CustomerCare at 18 percent of licence cost is effectively mandatory on perpetual licences because lapsing it removes upgrades, so the perpetual option is not really a one-time cost.
  • The storage format is proprietary; getting data out at volume means the ODBC connector, an additional 2,500 USD one-time or 1,000 USD a year, or writing against the REST API.
  • Canary is a small vendor with a limited partner network outside North America, so support coverage and integrator availability in Europe and Asia are thinner than for AVEVA or Ignition.
  • It is a Windows-only server product with no Linux or container deployment, which complicates placing collectors in modern edge estates.

RisingWave

  • Anything that does not fit SQL, such as custom windowing, complex event processing or heavy stateful logic, still needs Flink, so RisingWave often adds a system rather than removing one.
  • The Apache 2.0 community edition excludes premium features behind a licence key, and which capabilities sit on which side of that line moves between releases, so a self-hosted plan can be invalidated by an upgrade.
  • Long-running materialised views accumulate state in object storage, and cost and recovery time grow with retention in ways that are hard to forecast before you are in production.
  • The Postgres compatibility is protocol level; it is not a transactional Postgres and using it as a general purpose database, with point updates or high write concurrency, goes badly.
  • It is a comparatively young venture-funded project competing with Flink, Materialize and warehouse-native streaming, and the ecosystem of connectors, operators and third-party expertise is much thinner.

Pricing, plan by plan

Canary Labs

$3000/year
  • Subscription, 3,500 tags$3000/year
    • Unlimited Axiom clients
    • Unlimited Excel clients
    • Support and upgrades included
  • Perpetual, 3,500 tags$8730/one-time
    • 7,400 USD licence plus 1,330 USD first-year CustomerCare
    • CustomerCare renews at 18 percent of licence cost per year
    • Unlimited clients
  • Private cloud, 3,500 tags$12320/year
    • Hosted by Canary
    • 1,500 USD one-time setup fee per system
    • Scales to around 58,684 USD per year at 60,000 tags
  • Enterprise unlimited$undefined/year
    • Unlimited tags
    • Negotiated licensing terms
    • Quoted pricing

RisingWave

Free
  • Community EditionFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence, self-hosted
    • Core streaming engine and connectors
    • Premium features excluded and require a licence key
  • Cloud Basic$0.227/hour
    • Billed per RisingWave Unit hour
    • Hosted on AWS, GCP or Azure
    • Capped at 64 cores
  • Cloud Pro$undefined/year
    • No core limit
    • Bring your own cloud option
    • Premium features included
  • Self-managed Enterprise$undefined/year
    • On premises or Kubernetes
    • Premium features unlocked by licence
    • Annual contract with SLA

Which should you pick?

Choose Canary Labs if

  • You need loss-less compression.
  • You work on Windows, Web.
  • You also want unlimited clients.
Canary Labs review

Choose RisingWave if

  • You need sql materialised views.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want postgres wire compatibility.
RisingWave review

Questions people ask

Is Canary Labs or RisingWave better?
Neither clearly leads. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year and RisingWave at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Canary Labs or RisingWave?
RisingWave has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $3000/year for Canary Labs and Free for RisingWave.
Does Canary Labs or RisingWave run on more platforms?
Canary Labs runs on Windows, Web. RisingWave runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
Can I use RisingWave for free?
Yes. RisingWave has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year.
What is Canary Labs best used for?
Canary Labs is most often used for a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement, a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement, an ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboards, a plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an audit. Of those, a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement and a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement are not what RisingWave is typically brought in for.
What can Canary Labs do that RisingWave cannot?
Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, Unlimited clients, Store and forward, Views service. RisingWave covers SQL materialised views, Postgres wire compatibility, Object storage state, Source connectors.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Canary Labs: What does Canary cost?

8,730 USD for a 3,500 tag perpetual system including first-year CustomerCare, or 3,000 USD a year on subscription.

RisingWave: Is RisingWave open source?

The community edition is Apache 2.0 and self-hostable, but a set of premium features requires a paid licence key.

Canary Labs: Are client licences extra?

No. Unlimited Axiom browser clients and unlimited Excel clients are included on every tier.

RisingWave: What does the cloud cost?

It starts at 0.227 US dollars per RisingWave Unit hour on the Basic tier, which is capped at 64 cores.

Canary Labs: Is perpetual cheaper than subscription?

Canary states perpetual pays off after roughly three years, and after that you still pay 18 percent CustomerCare annually.

RisingWave: Does it replace Flink?

For SQL-expressible transformations, often yes. For custom stateful processing and complex event handling, no.

Canary Labs: Does it use lossy compression?

No. Canary stores every collected value rather than approximating the trend, which matters for regulated data retention.

RisingWave: Can I query it like Postgres?

Yes over the Postgres wire protocol, but it is an analytical streaming engine, not a transactional database.

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