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Developer Tools · head to head

Frappe vs Timeplus

Frappe logo

Frappe

Developer Tools

The Python web framework behind ERPNext, sold as managed hosting through Frappe Cloud

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Timeplus logo

Timeplus

Databases

Streaming SQL engine built on ClickHouse internals, shipping as one small binary

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Frappe the framework is strongly opinionated: its own ORM, templating and job queue mean general Python and Django experience transfers only partly, and onboarding a new developer takes weeks rather than days.; Timeplus proton, the free version, is single-node by design, so any requirement for high availability or horizontal scale forces the commercial licence; the open source edition is a trial in practical terms.
  • They diverge on capability: Frappe covers DocType modelling, Timeplus covers Streaming SQL.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Frappe and Timeplus actually diverge.

Attributes where Frappe and Timeplus differ
AttributeFrappeTimeplus
Pricing modelPer month by site or serverPer month for cloud, quoted for self-hosted
PlatformsWeb, Linux, DockerLinux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web
CategoryDeveloper ToolsDatabases

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 Frappe

  • DocType modelling
  • Role and field permissions
  • Built-in REST API
  • Background jobs
  • Bench CLI
  • Frappe Cloud hosting
  • App marketplace
  • Multi-tenancy

Only in Timeplus

  • Streaming SQL
  • Unified streaming and historical
  • ClickHouse-based engine
  • Single binary deployment
  • External streams
  • Materialised views

What people use each for

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

Frappe

  • A team building an internal business application that needs permissions, audit trail and an API on day one rather than in month threenot Timeplus
  • An ERPNext user who wants managed hosting, automatic updates and offsite backups without hiring a systems administratornot Timeplus
  • An Indian or emerging-market business that wants to pay for application hosting in local currency at local price pointsnot Timeplus
  • A consultancy shipping custom vertical apps to clients on a shared framework with per-client site isolationnot Timeplus

Timeplus

  • Real-time alerting on Kafka topics where standing up a Flink cluster is more work than the use case justifiesnot Frappe
  • Fraud or anomaly detection that must join a live event stream against recent history in one querynot Frappe
  • Streaming ETL from Kafka or MySQL change data capture into ClickHouse without writing Javanot Frappe
  • A small data team that needs continuous aggregation but has no platform engineers to operate JVM infrastructurenot Frappe

Where each one falls short

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

Frappe

  • The framework is strongly opinionated: its own ORM, templating and job queue mean general Python and Django experience transfers only partly, and onboarding a new developer takes weeks rather than days.
  • The developer pool is small and heavily concentrated in India, so hiring Frappe experience elsewhere is slow and expensive relative to mainstream stacks.
  • Documentation is uneven in depth and lags behind releases in places, so real answers often come from reading the source or the community forum.
  • Major version upgrades of the framework have historically broken custom apps that reach past the DocType layer, so bespoke code carries a recurring maintenance cost at each upgrade.
  • Frappe Cloud recommends against its cheapest Hetzner-backed option for mission-critical production, so the headline $5 entry price is not the price of a production-grade deployment.

Timeplus

  • Proton, the free version, is single-node by design, so any requirement for high availability or horizontal scale forces the commercial licence; the open source edition is a trial in practical terms.
  • It is a young project against Apache Flink’s decade of production history, so the hiring pool, the connector library and the body of known failure modes are all much smaller.
  • Inheriting ClickHouse internals also inherits ClickHouse constraints: memory-hungry queries, awkward updates and a SQL dialect that is not portable to other engines.
  • Exactly-once semantics and state recovery guarantees are less battle-tested than Flink checkpointing, which matters if the pipeline moves money.
  • Cloud pricing is by provisioned instance size rather than usage, so a bursty workload pays for peak capacity around the clock or has to be resized by hand.

Pricing, plan by plan

Frappe

Free
  • Framework, self-hostedFree
    • MIT licensed, no licence fee
    • Install with bench on your own Linux servers
    • You carry updates, backups and security patching
  • Frappe Cloud Sites$5/month
    • Also listed at ₹410 per month
    • Shared servers with 150+ installable apps
    • Automatic updates and offsite backups
  • Frappe Cloud Servers$40/month
    • Also listed at ₹3,600 per month
    • Dedicated or shared virtual machines
    • Unlimited sites on your server

Timeplus

Free
  • Timeplus ProtonFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Single node only
    • Full streaming SQL engine
  • Timeplus Cloud$199/month
    • One to thirty-two CPUs
    • 4 GB to 128 GB memory
    • From 250 GB SSD storage
  • Self-hosted or BYOC$undefined/year
    • Multi-node clustering
    • Kubernetes or bare metal
    • Customisable compute and storage

Which should you pick?

Choose Frappe if

  • You need doctype modelling.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Docker.
  • You also want role and field permissions.
Frappe review

Choose Timeplus if

  • You need streaming sql.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
  • You also want unified streaming and historical.
Timeplus review

Questions people ask

Is Frappe or Timeplus better?
Neither clearly leads. Frappe starts at Free and Timeplus at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Frappe or Timeplus?
Frappe starts at Free and Timeplus at Free.
Does Frappe or Timeplus run on more platforms?
Frappe runs on Web, Linux, Docker. Timeplus runs on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
Can I use Frappe for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Frappe best used for?
Frappe is most often used for a team building an internal business application that needs permissions, audit trail and an api on day one rather than in month three, an erpnext user who wants managed hosting, automatic updates and offsite backups without hiring a systems administrator, an indian or emerging-market business that wants to pay for application hosting in local currency at local price points, a consultancy shipping custom vertical apps to clients on a shared framework with per-client site isolation. Of those, a team building an internal business application that needs permissions, audit trail and an api on day one rather than in month three and an erpnext user who wants managed hosting, automatic updates and offsite backups without hiring a systems administrator are not what Timeplus is typically brought in for.
What can Frappe do that Timeplus cannot?
Frappe covers DocType modelling, Role and field permissions, Built-in REST API, Background jobs. Timeplus covers Streaming SQL, Unified streaming and historical, ClickHouse-based engine, Single binary deployment.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Frappe: Is Frappe the same as ERPNext?

No. Frappe is the framework; ERPNext is the ERP application written on it. You can run Frappe without ERPNext to build your own applications.

Timeplus: Is Timeplus open source?

The core engine, Timeplus Proton, is Apache 2.0. Timeplus Enterprise and Cloud are commercial.

Frappe: What licence is the framework under?

MIT, which is permissive and imposes no obligation to publish your changes, unlike the AGPL used by several open source ERP rivals.

Timeplus: What is the difference from Flink?

Timeplus is one binary with SQL as the only interface; Flink is a JVM cluster with a Java and SQL API and far more operational surface.

Frappe: Can I pay in rupees?

Yes. Frappe Cloud publishes the same plans in Indian rupees, ₹410 a month for sites and ₹3,600 for servers, rather than converting a dollar price at checkout.

Timeplus: Can Proton run in production?

It can, but it is single-node only, so there is no high availability without the commercial edition.

Frappe: Do I have to use Frappe Cloud?

No, self-hosting with bench or Docker is fully supported and free. Frappe Cloud is a convenience purchase, and it funds the open source work.

Timeplus: How much is the cloud?

From 199 US dollars a month, sized by CPU and memory, with a fourteen day trial.

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