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Databases · head to head

FaunaDB vs Visual Studio

FaunaDB logo

FaunaDB

Databases

Document-relational database whose hosted service closed in 2025 and whose core is now unmaintained Apache 2.0 code.

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit FaunaDBFull review
Visual Studio logo

Visual Studio

Developer Tools

IDE for .NET and C++ development on Windows

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit Visual StudioFull review

The short version

  • Visual Studio is free; FaunaDB starts at $25/mo.
  • Where Visual Studio falls short: A standalone perpetually licensed Visual Studio Professional 2022 costs $499 as a one-time purchase, separate from the subscription tiers.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which FaunaDB and Visual Studio actually diverge.

Attributes where FaunaDB and Visual Studio differ
AttributeFaunaDBVisual Studio
CategoryDatabasesDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Freemium), free tier (Yes), platforms (Web).

Not yet recorded: founded for Visual Studio.

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 FaunaDB

  • Document-relational model
  • FQL v10
  • Distributed ACID transactions
  • HTTPS access
  • User-defined functions
  • Attribute-based access control
  • Document history
  • Event streaming

Only in Visual Studio

Nothing recorded that FaunaDB does not also cover.

What people use each for

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

FaunaDB

  • Keeping an existing Fauna-backed application alive on self-hosted infrastructure while a migration is planned and fundednot Visual Studio
  • Extracting historical data from a Fauna dataset that can no longer be reached through the hosted APInot Visual Studio
  • Studying a production implementation of deterministic distributed transactions, since the full server source is now readable under Apache 2.0not Visual Studio
  • Forking the engine deliberately, where an organisation has JVM and distributed-systems staff and wants a document-relational store it fully controlsnot Visual Studio

Visual Studio

  • Managing complex, large-scale projects across multiple platformsnot FaunaDB
  • Commercial development in small businessesnot FaunaDB
  • DevOps and automated deployment workflowsnot FaunaDB
  • Windows/SQL Server developer and tester rolesnot FaunaDB
  • Short-term or month-to-month IDE access needsnot FaunaDB

Where each one falls short

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

FaunaDB

  • The hosted service was wound down in 2025, so there is no managed Fauna to buy; every remaining user either operates a JVM cluster themselves or migrates, and both are projects rather than tasks
  • The open-sourced repository has had no substantive activity since May 2025 and the drivers were frozen alongside it, so you inherit responsibility for security patches in a Scala distributed database that almost nobody else is running
  • FQL has no wire or dialect compatibility with anything else, so migrating off is a rewrite of every query, index and access rule in the application rather than a data export
  • No BI tool, ORM or CDC connector speaks FQL, so reporting and analytics always required exporting the data first, and that export tooling is now also unmaintained
  • The community was small before the shutdown and has dispersed since, so operational answers, tuning advice and people who have run a Fauna cluster in anger are all scarce when something breaks

Visual Studio

  • Community edition is free only for individual developers, classroom use, academic research and open-source contribution, not general commercial use
  • Monthly subscriptions are $45 per user per month for Professional and $250 per user per month for Enterprise, and do not include perpetual use rights the way annual Standard subscriptions do
  • A standalone perpetually licensed Visual Studio Professional 2022 costs $499 as a one-time purchase, separate from the subscription tiers

Pricing, plan by plan

FaunaDB

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 100K read ops
    • 50K write ops
    • 1GB storage
  • Pro$25/mo
    • Pay per use
    • Priority support
    • Advanced features

Visual Studio

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Visual Studio review.

Which should you pick?

Choose FaunaDB if

  • You need document-relational model.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want fql v10.
FaunaDB review

Choose Visual Studio if

  • You want to start without paying.
Visual Studio review

Questions people ask

Is FaunaDB or Visual Studio better?
Neither clearly leads. FaunaDB starts at Free and Visual Studio at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, FaunaDB or Visual Studio?
FaunaDB starts at Free and Visual Studio at Free.
Does FaunaDB or Visual Studio run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use FaunaDB for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is FaunaDB best used for?
FaunaDB is most often used for keeping an existing fauna-backed application alive on self-hosted infrastructure while a migration is planned and funded, extracting historical data from a fauna dataset that can no longer be reached through the hosted api, studying a production implementation of deterministic distributed transactions, since the full server source is now readable under apache 2.0, forking the engine deliberately, where an organisation has jvm and distributed-systems staff and wants a document-relational store it fully controls. Of those, keeping an existing fauna-backed application alive on self-hosted infrastructure while a migration is planned and funded and extracting historical data from a fauna dataset that can no longer be reached through the hosted api are not what Visual Studio is typically brought in for.
What can FaunaDB do that Visual Studio cannot?
FaunaDB covers Document-relational model, FQL v10, Distributed ACID transactions, HTTPS access.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

FaunaDB: Can I still sign up for Fauna as a service?

No. Fauna Inc. wound down the hosted service in 2025 and the company website is no longer serving. The only way to run Fauna now is to build and operate the open-sourced server yourself.

Visual Studio: What are the pricing differences between subscription types?

Standard subscriptions include access to more benefits, such as Azure dev/test pricing, monthly Azure individual credit, software and download access, services, training, and support. Monthly subscriptions offer flexibility but fewer benefits.

Source
FaunaDB: What licence is the open-sourced code under?

Apache 2.0, with the copyright held by a FaunaDB Foundation. That is a permissive OSI licence with no competing-use clause, so you may run it, modify it and even offer it as a service.

Visual Studio: Are discounts available for startups?

There aren't any discounts available to start-ups, however an unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for specific scenarios like open source work.

Source
FaunaDB: Is the open source version the same software that ran the cloud?

It is the core database engine. The control plane, billing, dashboard and multi-tenant operational tooling that made it a service are not part of the release, so you are running the engine, not the product.

Visual Studio: Who can use Visual Studio Community for free?

In non-enterprise organizations, up to five users can use it. Enterprise organizations (greater than 250 PCs or greater than $1M annual revenue) cannot use it beyond academic/open-source scenarios.

Source
FaunaDB: What should I migrate to?

There is no drop-in target. Teams that valued the document model with relationships usually land on Postgres with JSONB, and teams that valued the serverless HTTP access pattern usually land on DynamoDB or a managed Postgres with an HTTP driver. Either way the query layer is rewritten.

Visual Studio: What's the renewal pricing structure?

Enterprise standard renews at $214.09/month (after initial $499.92); Professional at $66.59/month (after $99.99).

Source
FaunaDB: How hard is it to self-host?

It builds as a fat JAR and runs as a multi-node JVM cluster. There is an OPERATING.md, but no supported packaging, no operator, no upstream releases and no support contract, so budget for a distributed-systems engineer, not a container.

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