Is Convex or Qdrant better?

Neither clearly leads. Convex starts at Free and Qdrant at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Convex or Qdrant?

Convex starts at Free and Qdrant at Free.

Does Convex or Qdrant run on more platforms?

Convex runs on Web. Qdrant runs on Cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes, Self-hosted, Edge (beta), Serverless (coming).

Can I use Convex for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is Convex best used for?

Convex is most often used for collaborative applications where several users see the same data and every client must reflect a change immediately, agent backends that need durable state, scheduled work and transactional writes without assembling a queue, a database and a cache, small product teams who need a complete backend, including auth integration, file storage and subscriptions, without hiring infrastructure engineers, prototypes that must become production without a rewrite of the data layer, where end-to-end typescript types remove a class of integration bugs. Of those, collaborative applications where several users see the same data and every client must reflect a change immediately and agent backends that need durable state, scheduled work and transactional writes without assembling a queue, a database and a cache are not what Qdrant is typically brought in for.

What can Convex do that Qdrant cannot?

Convex covers Reactive queries, TypeScript server functions, ACID transactions, Document database.

Databases · head to head

Convex vs Qdrant

Convex

Databases

Reactive backend combining a document database, TypeScript server functions and live queries, source-available under the Functional Source Licence.

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Qdrant

Databases

High-performance vector database for similarity search and embedding-based retrieval

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Convex the Functional Source Licence is not an OSI open source licence: competing use is prohibited until each release reaches its second anniversary and converts to Apache 2.0, so you may self-host but you may not build a service on it.; Qdrant free tier extremely limited (0.5 vCPU, 1GB RAM, 4GB disk); suitable only for experiments
Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Convex and Qdrant actually diverge.

Attributes where Convex and Qdrant differ
Attribute	Convex	Qdrant
Pricing model	subscription	freemium
Platforms	Web	Cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes, Self-hosted, Edge (beta), Serverless (coming)

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

Reactive queries
TypeScript server functions
ACID transactions
Document database
Scheduling and workflows
File storage
Text and vector search
End-to-end types

Only in Qdrant

Nothing recorded that Convex does not also cover.

What people use each for

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

Convex

Collaborative applications where several users see the same data and every client must reflect a change immediatelynot Qdrant
Agent backends that need durable state, scheduled work and transactional writes without assembling a queue, a database and a cachenot Qdrant
Small product teams who need a complete backend, including auth integration, file storage and subscriptions, without hiring infrastructure engineersnot Qdrant
Prototypes that must become production without a rewrite of the data layer, where end-to-end TypeScript types remove a class of integration bugsnot Qdrant

Qdrant

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) backends for LLM applicationsnot Convex
Semantic search across large document corporanot Convex
Multimodal retrieval (text, images, video) for recommendation systemsnot Convex
Similarity-based product or content recommendationsnot Convex
Real-time vector indexing for streaming embedding datanot Convex

Where each one falls short

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

Convex

The Functional Source Licence is not an OSI open source licence: competing use is prohibited until each release reaches its second anniversary and converts to Apache 2.0, so you may self-host but you may not build a service on it.
Transactions are bounded at one second of user code, 16 MiB read and written, 32,000 documents scanned and 16,000 written, so every backfill, migration or bulk import has to be chunked into scheduled batches rather than written as a single operation.
There is no SQL and no query planner; you declare up to 32 indexes per table and traverse them, and joins are loops in TypeScript, so an unanticipated access pattern requires a schema and index change rather than a new query.
It is not an analytical database, so reporting means streaming data out to a warehouse and BI tools cannot be pointed at Convex directly, which adds a pipeline the architecture diagram did not originally include.
The application is written against Convex's function and client APIs rather than a standard protocol, so leaving means rewriting the data access layer and replacing the reactivity model, not repointing a connection string.

Qdrant

Free tier extremely limited (0.5 vCPU, 1GB RAM, 4GB disk); suitable only for experiments
Standard and Premium pricing usage-based; specific costs not published; requires calculator or quote
Requires understanding of embeddings and vector search concepts; not suitable for SQL-only teams
Early-stage serverless offering (coming soon) suggests maturity gaps in that deployment model

Pricing, plan by plan

Convex

Free

Free & StarterFree
- Supports 1-6 developers
- Reactive database
- File storage
Professional$25/month per developer
- Supports up to 20 developers
- All Starter features
- Log streaming
Business & Enterprise$2500/month minimum
- Supports 50+ developers
- SAML/SSO
- Service SLAs

Qdrant

Free

FreeFree
- Single-node cluster
- 0.5 vCPU
- 1GB RAM
Standard$undefined/usage-based
- Dedicated resources
- Flexible scaling
- High availability
Premium$undefined/minimum spend
- SSO and SAML
- Private VPC links
- 99.9% uptime SLA

Which should you pick?

Choose Convex if

You need reactive queries.
You want to start without paying.
You also want typescript server functions.

Convex review

Choose Qdrant if

You want to start without paying.
You work on Cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes, Self-hosted, Edge (beta), Serverless (coming).

Qdrant review

Questions people ask

Is Convex or Qdrant better?: Neither clearly leads. Convex starts at Free and Qdrant at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Convex or Qdrant?: Convex starts at Free and Qdrant at Free.
Does Convex or Qdrant run on more platforms?: Convex runs on Web. Qdrant runs on Cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes, Self-hosted, Edge (beta), Serverless (coming).
Can I use Convex for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Convex best used for?: Convex is most often used for collaborative applications where several users see the same data and every client must reflect a change immediately, agent backends that need durable state, scheduled work and transactional writes without assembling a queue, a database and a cache, small product teams who need a complete backend, including auth integration, file storage and subscriptions, without hiring infrastructure engineers, prototypes that must become production without a rewrite of the data layer, where end-to-end typescript types remove a class of integration bugs. Of those, collaborative applications where several users see the same data and every client must reflect a change immediately and agent backends that need durable state, scheduled work and transactional writes without assembling a queue, a database and a cache are not what Qdrant is typically brought in for.
What can Convex do that Qdrant cannot?: Convex covers Reactive queries, TypeScript server functions, ACID transactions, Document database.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Convex: Is Convex open source?

It is source-available under FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0. You may read, modify and self-host it, but competing use is prohibited until each release converts to Apache 2.0 on its second anniversary.

Qdrant: Can I use Qdrant for free?

Yes, Qdrant offers a free tier that provides a single node cluster with 0.5 vCPU, 1GB RAM, and 4GB disk space. It includes free cloud inference with selected models and is described as free forever for testing and prototypes.

Source

Convex: Can I self-host it?

Yes. The backend, dashboard and CLI can run on your own infrastructure, with most of the features of the cloud product. Self-hosted instances include a telemetry beacon that can be disabled.

Qdrant: How is Qdrant Cloud billing calculated?

Billing is calculated based on actual resource usage during each billing period. You are charged hourly for compute (vCPU), memory (GB), storage (GB), backups, and any paid inference tokens used.

Source

Convex: Does it support SQL?

No. Data is accessed through a TypeScript query builder over declared indexes. Relationships are traversed in code, which is explicit and type-safe but means no ad hoc querying.

Qdrant: What happens if I scale beyond the free tier?

The Standard Tier uses the same usage-based billing model as the free tier but adds features like dedicated resources with flexible scaling, highly available setups with backup and disaster recovery, and a 99.5% uptime SLA.

Source

Convex: What happens if a mutation exceeds the limits?

It fails rather than running longer, so bulk work must be split into batches and scheduled. The limits are per transaction: one second of user code, 16 MiB read and written, 32,000 documents scanned and 16,000 written.

Qdrant: What SLA does Qdrant offer?

The Standard Tier provides 99.5% uptime SLA. The Premium Tier, which requires a minimum spend for enterprises, offers 99.9% uptime SLA along with single sign-on and private VPC links.

Source

Convex: How does reactivity actually work?

Queries are deterministic functions and Convex records the data each one read. When a mutation changes that data, affected queries are re-run and subscribed clients receive the new result, so cache invalidation is handled by the platform.

Qdrant: Are there dedicated cloud infrastructure options?

Yes, Qdrant offers Hybrid Cloud (runs on your infrastructure) and Private Cloud (complete isolation) options, both with custom pricing that requires contacting the sales team.

Source

Convex vs Qdrant

Convex

Qdrant

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Convex

Only in Qdrant

What people use each for

Convex

Qdrant

Where each one falls short

Convex

Qdrant

Pricing, plan by plan

Convex

Qdrant

Which should you pick?

Choose Convex if

Choose Qdrant if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Convex

More on Qdrant

Keep looking

Other head to heads