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ConfigCat vs RisingWave

ConfigCat logo

ConfigCat

Developer Tools

Feature flag service priced per flag and environment with unlimited seats and unlimited monthly active users

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit ConfigCatFull review
RisingWave logo

RisingWave

Databases

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit RisingWaveFull review

The short version

  • Free plans on both; paid from $110/mo and $0.227/mo.
  • Only ConfigCat lists feature flags and configuration; only RisingWave lists SQL materialised views.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ConfigCat and RisingWave actually diverge.

Attributes where ConfigCat and RisingWave differ
AttributeConfigCatRisingWave
Pricing modelPer month by feature flag and environment countPer RisingWave Unit hour
PlatformsWeb, API, iOS, Android, WindowsLinux, Self-hosted, Web
CategoryDeveloper ToolsDatabases

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes).

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 ConfigCat

  • Feature flags and configuration
  • Percentage rollouts
  • Targeting rules and segments
  • Unlimited seats
  • Global CDN delivery
  • Audit log
  • Public API and webhooks
  • SDKs across languages

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.

ConfigCat

  • A consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-MAU flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worthnot RisingWave
  • A team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seatnot RisingWave
  • Decoupling deployment from release with percentage rollouts and a kill switch, without buying an experimentation platformnot RisingWave
  • A small team that needs ten flags permanently and can run indefinitely on the free tiernot RisingWave

RisingWave

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

Where each one falls short

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

ConfigCat

  • There is no experimentation or statistical analysis engine, so teams wanting real A/B tests with significance testing must buy and integrate a separate analytics or experimentation product
  • Pricing by flag count punishes exactly the hygiene you want: the Pro tier caps at 100 flags, so teams that do not aggressively retire stale flags are pushed to the 325 dollar Smart tier for housekeeping reasons rather than growth
  • The free tier allows only 2 environments, which does not cover the common development, staging and production split, so almost any real deployment starts on a paid plan
  • It is a smaller vendor than the category incumbents, so enterprise procurement teams will find less depth in compliance attestations, contractual terms and reference architecture than LaunchDarkly offers
  • Flag evaluation relies on SDK-side caching of a CDN-delivered config, which is fast but means propagation of a change is eventually consistent rather than instant, something to understand before relying on it as an emergency kill switch

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

ConfigCat

Free
  • Forever FreeFree
    • 10 feature flags
    • 2 environments and 2 products
    • 2 segments
  • Pro$110/mo
    • 100 feature flags
    • 3 environments and 3 products
    • Unlimited seats and MAUs
  • Smart$325/mo
    • Unlimited feature flags
    • Unlimited environments, products and segments
    • Unlimited seats and MAUs
  • Enterprise$900/mo
    • Everything in Smart
    • Enterprise support and controls
    • Unlimited everything on flag counts

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 ProOn request
    • No core limit
    • Bring your own cloud option
    • Premium features included
  • Self-managed EnterpriseOn request
    • On premises or Kubernetes
    • Premium features unlocked by licence
    • Annual contract with SLA

Which should you pick?

Choose ConfigCat if

  • You need feature flags and configuration.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, API, iOS, Android, Windows.
  • You also want percentage rollouts.
ConfigCat review

Choose RisingWave if

  • You need sql materialised views.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Self-hosted, Web.
  • You also want postgres wire compatibility.
RisingWave review

Questions people ask

Is ConfigCat or RisingWave better?
Neither clearly leads. ConfigCat starts at Free and RisingWave at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ConfigCat or RisingWave?
ConfigCat starts at Free and RisingWave at Free.
Does ConfigCat or RisingWave run on more platforms?
ConfigCat runs on Web, API, iOS, Android, Windows. RisingWave runs on Linux, Self-hosted, Web.
Can I use ConfigCat for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is ConfigCat best used for?
ConfigCat is most often used for a consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-mau flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worth, a team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seat, decoupling deployment from release with percentage rollouts and a kill switch, without buying an experimentation platform, a small team that needs ten flags permanently and can run indefinitely on the free tier. Of those, a consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-mau flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worth and a team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seat are not what RisingWave is typically brought in for.
What can ConfigCat do that RisingWave cannot?
ConfigCat covers Feature flags and configuration, Percentage rollouts, Targeting rules and segments, Unlimited seats. RisingWave covers SQL materialised views, Postgres wire compatibility, Object storage state, Source connectors.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ConfigCat: How is ConfigCat priced?

By feature flag, environment and product count. Seats, monthly active users and flag reads are unlimited on every plan.

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.

ConfigCat: Is the free tier usable?

For small projects yes, but at 10 flags and 2 environments it will not cover a dev, staging and production setup.

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.

ConfigCat: Can it run A/B tests?

It can split traffic, but there is no statistics engine. You need a separate analytics tool to decide a winner.

RisingWave: Does it replace Flink?

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

ConfigCat: How fast does a flag change take effect?

SDKs poll and cache, so changes propagate on the polling interval rather than instantly.

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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