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Developer Tools · head to head

Hookdeck vs RavenDB

Hookdeck logo

Hookdeck

Developer Tools

Event gateway that receives, queues, retries and replays inbound webhooks

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit HookdeckFull review
RavenDB logo

RavenDB

Databases

The fully transactional NoSQL document database

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit RavenDBFull review

The short version

  • RavenDB is an open-source document-oriented database written in C#.
  • Free plans on both; paid from $39/mo and $499/yr.
  • Only Hookdeck lists ingest and persist; only RavenDB lists ACID Transactions.
  • Where Hookdeck falls short: pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.
  • Where RavenDB falls short: the free Developer licence bars commercial use and expires every 6 months, requiring renewal.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Hookdeck and RavenDB actually diverge.

Attributes where Hookdeck and RavenDB differ
AttributeHookdeckRavenDB
Pricing modelPer month by delivered event countFreemium
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, WindowsLinux, Windows, macOS, Self-hosted, Web
CategoryDeveloper ToolsDatabases

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

Not yet recorded: founded for Hookdeck.

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 Hookdeck

  • Ingest and persist
  • Automatic retries
  • Filters and fan-out
  • Transformations
  • Local development CLI
  • Rate limiting

Only in RavenDB

  • ACID Transactions
  • Auto-indexing
  • Full-text Search
  • Graph Queries
  • Distributed Counters
  • Time Series
  • Document Compression
  • .NET

What people use each for

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

Hookdeck

  • A payments integration where losing a Stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfillednot RavenDB
  • Fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separatelynot RavenDB
  • Debugging a partner integration by replaying the exact failing payload after shipping a fixnot RavenDB
  • Receiving production-shaped webhooks on a developer laptop without running a public tunnelnot RavenDB

RavenDB

  • Running a distributed document database with ACID transactionsnot Hookdeck
  • Self hosting a multi node database cluster on your own hardwarenot Hookdeck
  • Replicating operational data out to analytics systems through ETLnot Hookdeck

Where each one falls short

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

Hookdeck

  • Pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries
  • Free-tier retention is three days, which is shorter than the time it typically takes to notice a failing integration, so the payloads needed for a replay are often already gone
  • It becomes a single point of failure in front of every third-party integration, and an outage there means every provider webhook queues or fails at once
  • The transformation layer runs JavaScript in a constrained environment, so anything that needs a database lookup or an external call has to happen downstream instead
  • For a team already running Kafka or SQS the value is mostly the console and the replay UI, which is a hard cost to justify against infrastructure they already operate

RavenDB

  • The free Developer licence bars commercial use and expires every 6 months, requiring renewal
  • The free Community licence caps a customer at 60 cores and forces you to stay on the latest major version
  • The Professional licence is limited to a single database, a 5 node cluster, 40 cores and 240 GB RAM
  • Sharding across nodes, ETL to OLAP, Elasticsearch and Kafka, and data archival are Enterprise only
  • Enterprise and AI licence pricing is contact us only with no published rate

Pricing, plan by plan

Hookdeck

Free
  • DeveloperFree
    • Up to ten thousand events per month
    • Three-day retention
    • One user
  • Team$39/mo
    • Ten thousand events included
    • Unlimited users
    • Pay as you go metering above the included events
  • Growth$499/mo
    • Ten thousand events included plus metered usage
    • Thirty-day retention
    • Uptime and latency SLAs
  • EnterpriseOn request
    • Negotiated event volume
    • Custom retention
    • Dedicated support

RavenDB

Free
  • CommunityFree
    • 3 cores
    • 6GB RAM
    • Community support
  • Professional$499/yr
    • Production use
    • Professional support
    • Advanced features

Which should you pick?

Choose Hookdeck if

  • You need ingest and persist.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want automatic retries.
Hookdeck review

Choose RavenDB if

  • You need acid transactions.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, macOS, Self-hosted, Web.
  • You also want auto-indexing.
RavenDB review

Questions people ask

Is Hookdeck or RavenDB better?
Neither clearly leads. Hookdeck starts at Free and RavenDB at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Hookdeck or RavenDB?
Hookdeck starts at Free and RavenDB at Free.
Does Hookdeck or RavenDB run on more platforms?
Hookdeck runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows. RavenDB runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Self-hosted, Web.
Can I use Hookdeck for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Hookdeck best used for?
Hookdeck is most often used for a payments integration where losing a stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfilled, fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separately, debugging a partner integration by replaying the exact failing payload after shipping a fix, receiving production-shaped webhooks on a developer laptop without running a public tunnel. Of those, a payments integration where losing a stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfilled and fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separately are not what RavenDB is typically brought in for.
What can Hookdeck do that RavenDB cannot?
Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist, Automatic retries, Filters and fan-out, Transformations. RavenDB covers ACID Transactions, Auto-indexing, Full-text Search, Graph Queries.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Hookdeck: Is there a free plan?

Yes, ten thousand events a month with three-day retention and one user.

RavenDB: Is RavenDB free or open source?

RavenDB is open source under the AGPLv3 license and available on GitHub. It also offers a free developer license with enterprise-level features limited to 9 cores, 36GB max RAM, 3 nodes, and non-commercial use.

Source
Hookdeck: How is usage counted?

By delivered events, so a single inbound webhook fanned out to three destinations counts as three.

RavenDB: Can I use RavenDB commercially for free?

RavenDB offers a free Community License that permits commercial deployment with unlimited databases and sizes, subject to a 60-core maximum per customer and requirement to run the latest major version.

Source
Hookdeck: Can I replay a failed webhook?

Yes, individually or in bulk from the console, with the original payload.

RavenDB: What commercial licensing options does RavenDB offer?

RavenDB offers Professional, Enterprise, and AI tiers for commercial use. Pricing for these tiers requires contacting their sales team at [email protected].

Source
Hookdeck: Does it work for outbound webhooks too?

Yes, the same queueing, retry and observability applies to webhooks you send.

RavenDB: Does RavenDB offer a cloud hosting option?

RavenDB Cloud provides a fully managed cloud database with maintenance, failover, and backups included. Pricing is available at cloud.ravendb.net/pricing.

Source
RavenDB: Is there a refund window if I purchase RavenDB?

RavenDB offers a 30-day refund window for purchased licenses.

Source
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