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APIs · head to head

Convoy vs StarRocks

Convoy logo

Convoy

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
StarRocks logo

StarRocks

Databases

Apache 2.0 MPP analytical database built for joins on open table formats

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; StarRocks self-hosting is a genuine operations job: frontend and backend node roles, tablet distribution, compaction and materialised view refresh all need an owner, and there is no small-team-friendly single-binary mode.
  • They diverge on capability: Convoy covers Inbound and outbound, StarRocks covers Cost-based optimiser.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Convoy and StarRocks actually diverge.

Attributes where Convoy and StarRocks differ
AttributeConvoyStarRocks
Pricing modelPer month, flat rate regardless of volumeOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, CloudLinux, Docker, Kubernetes
CategoryAPIsDatabases

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

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

Only in StarRocks

  • Cost-based optimiser
  • Lakehouse query engine
  • Primary key tables
  • Materialised views
  • Shared-data mode
  • MySQL wire protocol

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 StarRocks
  • A high-volume platform for which per-message webhook pricing costs more than the flat premium licencenot StarRocks
  • A team that also receives webhooks from many providers and wants ingestion, verification and deduplication in the same gatewaynot StarRocks
  • An engineering group that wants webhook delivery driven directly from an existing Kafka or SQS topicnot StarRocks

StarRocks

  • Customer-facing analytics where queries join a fact table to several dimensions and must return in well under a secondnot Convoy
  • Querying an Iceberg lakehouse directly without copying data into a proprietary warehouse formatnot Convoy
  • Replacing a ClickHouse deployment that has become unmanageable because every new question needs another denormalised tablenot Convoy
  • Real-time analytics fed by change data capture where rows must be updated in place rather than appendednot 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.

StarRocks

  • Self-hosting is a genuine operations job: frontend and backend node roles, tablet distribution, compaction and materialised view refresh all need an owner, and there is no small-team-friendly single-binary mode.
  • CelerData is by far the dominant contributor despite Linux Foundation stewardship, so the practical roadmap risk is the same as any single-vendor open source project.
  • It inherits a MySQL-flavoured SQL dialect from its Doris ancestry, so queries written for PostgreSQL, Snowflake or Trino need rewriting rather than porting.
  • Ecosystem support is thinner than ClickHouse or Trino: fewer client libraries, fewer managed hosting options and a much smaller pool of engineers who have run it in production.
  • Memory pressure under concurrent large joins is a common production failure, and the tuning knobs for query memory limits are unforgiving compared with a cloud warehouse that just scales.

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

StarRocks

Free
  • StarRocksFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Linux Foundation governance
    • No usage or node limits
  • CelerData Cloud$undefined/year
    • Managed StarRocks from the primary contributor
    • BYOC and serverless deployment options
    • Enterprise support and SLAs

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 StarRocks if

  • You need cost-based optimiser.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.
  • You also want lakehouse query engine.
StarRocks review

Questions people ask

Is Convoy or StarRocks better?
Neither clearly leads. Convoy starts at Free and StarRocks at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Convoy or StarRocks?
Convoy starts at Free and StarRocks at Free.
Does Convoy or StarRocks run on more platforms?
Convoy runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud. StarRocks runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.
Can I use Convoy for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
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 StarRocks is typically brought in for.
What can Convoy do that StarRocks cannot?
Convoy covers Inbound and outbound, Broker-driven ingestion, Payload transformation, Portal links. StarRocks covers Cost-based optimiser, Lakehouse query engine, Primary key tables, Materialised views.

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.

StarRocks: Is StarRocks open source?

Yes, Apache 2.0, governed under the Linux Foundation since 2023.

Convoy: What does premium cost?

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

StarRocks: How does it differ from ClickHouse?

StarRocks is built for joins across a star schema with a cost-based optimiser; ClickHouse is fastest on denormalised single tables.

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.

StarRocks: Who maintains it?

CelerData, formerly StarRocks Inc, is the dominant contributor and sells the managed service.

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.

StarRocks: Can it query Iceberg tables directly?

Yes, along with Hudi, Delta Lake, Hive and Paimon, with a local cache for repeat queries.

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