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APIs · head to head

Convoy vs Skyflow

Convoy logo

Convoy

APIs

Open source webhooks gateway you self-host, handling both sending and receiving

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Skyflow logo

Skyflow

APIs

Data privacy vault that holds sensitive records outside your own systems

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Convoy has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Convoy the default deployment is self-hosted, so you operate Convoy plus Postgres and Redis and carry the on-call burden for the system that delivers your customers' events.; Skyflow reported contracts near 195,000 US dollars a year with a platform fee before usage put this out of reach of early stage companies, which are precisely the ones whose architecture is still cheap to change.
  • They diverge on capability: Convoy covers Inbound and outbound, Skyflow covers Tokenised storage.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Convoy and Skyflow actually diverge.

Attributes where Convoy and Skyflow differ
AttributeConvoySkyflow
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelPer month, flat rate regardless of volumequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, CloudAPI, Web, Self-hosted

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

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 Convoy

  • Inbound and outbound
  • Broker-driven ingestion
  • Payload transformation
  • Portal links
  • Circuit breaking
  • Retry policies
  • OpenTelemetry export
  • Role-based access control

Only in Skyflow

  • Tokenised storage
  • Polymorphic encryption
  • Field level access policies
  • Data residency
  • Secure functions
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Detokenisation gateway
  • Audit trail

What people use each for

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

Convoy

  • A fintech that cannot route customer webhook traffic through a third-party SaaS for compliance reasonsnot Skyflow
  • A high-volume platform for which per-message webhook pricing costs more than the flat premium licencenot Skyflow
  • A team that also receives webhooks from many providers and wants ingestion, verification and deduplication in the same gatewaynot Skyflow
  • An engineering group that wants webhook delivery driven directly from an existing Kafka or SQS topicnot Skyflow

Skyflow

  • A fintech that wants card and bank account data out of its own infrastructure so its application servers leave PCI DSS assessment scopenot Convoy
  • A company entering India or the EU with data localisation obligations that would otherwise require standing up regional databases and operationsnot Convoy
  • A health technology business that needs protected health information isolated from the analytics stack while still supporting aggregate reportingnot Convoy
  • An engineering team that wants support agents to see masked identifiers and payment services to see real ones, enforced centrally rather than in every servicenot Convoy

Where each one falls short

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

Convoy

  • The default deployment is self-hosted, so you operate Convoy plus Postgres and Redis and carry the on-call burden for the system that delivers your customers' events.
  • Frain Technologies is a small startup, and putting customer-facing delivery infrastructure on it means accepting real vendor continuity risk on a component that is hard to swap out quickly.
  • The premium tier at a flat 999 US dollars a month is poor value below substantial volume, while the community edition omits the portal, transformations and RBAC that most production deployments end up wanting.
  • The hosted cloud trial is capped at one project and 100 events a day, which is too small to properly evaluate the service before committing.
  • Documentation and the third-party ecosystem are thinner than the established webhook services, so unusual configurations often mean reading the Go source.

Skyflow

  • Reported contracts near 195,000 US dollars a year with a platform fee before usage put this out of reach of early stage companies, which are precisely the ones whose architecture is still cheap to change.
  • Every read of a protected field becomes a network call to a third party, so latency and an external availability dependency enter paths that were previously local database reads, and outage planning has to account for a vendor you do not control.
  • Analytics and joins on vaulted data are constrained; work that was a simple SQL join now happens through secure functions or on tokens, and data teams routinely discover this after the engineering team has committed.
  • Unwinding the vault later is a rewrite rather than a migration because tokens are threaded through every service, so the switching cost climbs steadily and the negotiating position at renewal weakens with each release.
  • Scope reduction is an architectural claim your own assessor must accept, so the audit saving is real only if the implementation genuinely keeps sensitive values off your systems, and partial implementations that leave a cache or a log line in place deliver the cost without the benefit.

Pricing, plan by plan

Convoy

Free
  • CommunityFree
    • Self-hosted open source gateway
    • Inbound and outbound webhooks
    • Automatic retries and message broker support
  • Premium$999/month
    • Flat rate irrespective of message volume
    • Portal links and payload transformation
    • RBAC, circuit breaking and white labelling
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • SAML SSO
    • Dedicated support with SLA
    • On-premises deployment assistance
  • Cloud$undefined/month
    • Hosted by Convoy
    • 14 day trial limited to one project and 100 events a day
    • Usage-based tiers above the trial

Skyflow

On request
  • Skyflow Data Privacy Vault$undefined/year
    • Platform fee plus usage by data subject count
    • Priced additionally per data residency region
    • PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA coverage

Which should you pick?

Choose Convoy if

  • You need inbound and outbound.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want broker-driven ingestion.
Convoy review

Choose Skyflow if

  • You need tokenised storage.
  • You work on API, Web, Self-hosted.
  • You also want polymorphic encryption.
Skyflow review

Questions people ask

Is Convoy or Skyflow better?
Neither clearly leads. Convoy starts at Free and Skyflow at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Convoy or Skyflow?
Convoy has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Convoy and On request for Skyflow.
Does Convoy or Skyflow run on more platforms?
Convoy runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud. Skyflow runs on API, Web, Self-hosted.
Can I use Convoy for free?
Yes. Convoy has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Skyflow starts at On request.
What is Convoy best used for?
Convoy is most often used for a fintech that cannot route customer webhook traffic through a third-party saas for compliance reasons, a high-volume platform for which per-message webhook pricing costs more than the flat premium licence, a team that also receives webhooks from many providers and wants ingestion, verification and deduplication in the same gateway, an engineering group that wants webhook delivery driven directly from an existing kafka or sqs topic. Of those, a fintech that cannot route customer webhook traffic through a third-party saas for compliance reasons and a high-volume platform for which per-message webhook pricing costs more than the flat premium licence are not what Skyflow is typically brought in for.
What can Convoy do that Skyflow cannot?
Convoy covers Inbound and outbound, Broker-driven ingestion, Payload transformation, Portal links. Skyflow covers Tokenised storage, Polymorphic encryption, Field level access policies, Data residency.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Convoy: Is Convoy really open source?

Yes, the community edition is open source and self-hostable, covering both inbound and outbound webhooks with retries.

Skyflow: Does Skyflow really take my systems out of PCI scope?

It can, if card data never touches your infrastructure and the detokenisation happens at the boundary. Your QSA has to agree the design, so validate the architecture with your assessor before signing.

Convoy: What does premium cost?

A flat 999 US dollars a month, self-hosted, regardless of message volume.

Skyflow: What does it cost?

Nothing is published. Reported annual contracts sit around 195,000 US dollars, built from a platform fee plus usage by data subject count and additional charges per data residency region.

Convoy: Does it receive webhooks as well as send them?

Yes, inbound ingestion with verification and deduplication is a first-class feature, unlike most webhook services.

Skyflow: How does it help with data localisation?

Records can be pinned to a specified region, so an Indian or EU residency requirement is met by the vault rather than by you running regional databases and operations teams.

Convoy: Do I have to self-host?

No, there is a hosted cloud, but the trial is capped at 100 events a day and self-hosting is the primary model.

Skyflow: Can I still run analytics on vaulted data?

Partly. Aggregates and comparisons are supported through polymorphic encryption and secure functions, but arbitrary joins against other datasets are harder than they were, and this is the most common late surprise.

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