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Databases · head to head

Cockroach Labs vs LanceDB

Cockroach Labs logo

Cockroach Labs

Databases

The cloud-native distributed SQL database

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
LanceDB logo

LanceDB

Databases

Embedded retrieval library over the Apache 2.0 Lance columnar format, with proprietary Cloud and Enterprise tiers for serving at scale.

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Cockroach Labs has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Cockroach Labs basic and Standard tiers limited to AWS and GCP (select regions only); LanceDB the open source build is a library with no network endpoint, authentication or tenancy model, so exposing it to more than one application means writing your own service in front of it and handing every consumer credentials to the bucket.
  • They diverge on capability: Cockroach Labs covers Distributed SQL, LanceDB covers Embedded operation.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cockroach Labs and LanceDB actually diverge.

Attributes where Cockroach Labs and LanceDB differ
AttributeCockroach LabsLanceDB
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelfreemiumquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsAWS, GCP, AzureWeb
Founded2015Unknown

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

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 Cockroach Labs

  • Distributed SQL
  • Automatic Sharding
  • Multi-region Replication
  • Geo-partitioning
  • ACID Transactions
  • Horizontal Scaling
  • Survivability
  • PostgreSQL Compatibility

Only in LanceDB

  • Embedded operation
  • Lance columnar format
  • Object storage native
  • Multimodal storage
  • Vector indexes
  • Full-text and hybrid search
  • Scalar filtering
  • Dataset versioning

What people use each for

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

Cockroach Labs

  • Distributed SQL database for scalable applicationsnot LanceDB
  • Multi-region deployment and failovernot LanceDB

LanceDB

  • Retrieval over a dataset that includes images, audio or video, where keeping the embeddings and the source media in one format avoids a second storage systemnot Cockroach Labs
  • A training and retrieval pipeline that must read the same rows for both purposes without maintaining two copies and a sync jobnot Cockroach Labs
  • Prototyping search locally with the same code path that later runs against S3, with no local server to installnot Cockroach Labs
  • Keeping a large, mostly cold vector corpus on object storage rather than paying to hold it in memory in a conventional vector databasenot Cockroach Labs

Where each one falls short

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

Cockroach Labs

  • Basic and Standard tiers limited to AWS and GCP (select regions only)
  • Azure support restricted to Advanced tier only
  • Basic tier limited to 50 million RUs and 10 GiB storage per month
  • Advanced tier starts at $0.60/hour for 4 vCPUs minimum
  • 3 TiB maximum storage on Basic and Standard tiers, 10 TiB per node on Advanced

LanceDB

  • The open source build is a library with no network endpoint, authentication or tenancy model, so exposing it to more than one application means writing your own service in front of it and handing every consumer credentials to the bucket.
  • Queries that miss the cache pay object storage round trips, so interactive latency depends on local SSD caching or the Enterprise serving tier rather than on the library itself.
  • Concurrent writers to the same dataset coordinate through commits on the object store, so multi-writer setups can conflict and the safe pattern is a single writer per table, which is an architectural constraint on your ingest design.
  • Newly written rows are not in the index until the index is rebuilt or updated, and until then they are searched by brute force, so recall and latency drift between reindexing jobs that you have to schedule and pay for.
  • The capabilities that make it operable at scale, distributed index building, managed caching and hosted serving, live in the proprietary Cloud and Enterprise tiers, so the open licence protects the data but not the production deployment.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cockroach Labs

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Cockroach Labs review.

LanceDB

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the LanceDB review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Cockroach Labs if

  • You need distributed sql.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on AWS, GCP, Azure.
  • You also want automatic sharding.
Cockroach Labs review

Choose LanceDB if

  • You need embedded operation.
  • You also want lance columnar format.
LanceDB review

Questions people ask

Is Cockroach Labs or LanceDB better?
Neither clearly leads. Cockroach Labs starts at Free and LanceDB at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cockroach Labs or LanceDB?
Cockroach Labs has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Cockroach Labs and On request for LanceDB.
Does Cockroach Labs or LanceDB run on more platforms?
Cockroach Labs runs on AWS, GCP, Azure. LanceDB runs on Web.
Can I use Cockroach Labs for free?
Yes. Cockroach Labs has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. LanceDB starts at On request.
What is Cockroach Labs best used for?
Cockroach Labs is most often used for distributed sql database for scalable applications, multi-region deployment and failover. Of those, distributed sql database for scalable applications and multi-region deployment and failover are not what LanceDB is typically brought in for.
What can Cockroach Labs do that LanceDB cannot?
Cockroach Labs covers Distributed SQL, Automatic Sharding, Multi-region Replication, Geo-partitioning. LanceDB covers Embedded operation, Lance columnar format, Object storage native, Multimodal storage.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cockroach Labs: What does the free Basic tier include?

The Basic tier is free and includes 50 million RUs and 10 GiB storage per month, with a maximum compute of 30K RU/sec. No credit card is required to start.

Source
LanceDB: Is LanceDB open source?

The LanceDB library and the underlying Lance format are Apache 2.0. LanceDB Cloud and LanceDB Enterprise are proprietary managed products built on top of them.

Cockroach Labs: How much do the paid tiers cost?

Standard tier starts at $0.18 per hour for 2 vCPUs, and Advanced tier starts at $0.60 per hour for 4 vCPUs. Both tiers support additional resources with higher costs for increased compute and storage.

Source
LanceDB: Do I need the managed service?

Not for development or for embedded use in a single application. You typically need it when many clients must query concurrently with predictable latency, or when index builds outgrow one machine.

Cockroach Labs: What are the storage limits for each tier?

Basic plan supports up to 3 TiB storage, Standard tier up to 3 TiB, and Advanced tier up to 10 TiB per node with unlimited total storage.

Source
LanceDB: Can other tools read my data?

Yes. Lance datasets are readable from DuckDB, Polars, Pandas, PyArrow and PyTorch, which is the main practical difference from a vector database that owns its own storage.

Cockroach Labs: Can I get trial credits before paying?

Yes, new users can try CockroachDB free with $400 in credits. The Basic and Standard plans do not require a credit card to start.

Source
LanceDB: How does it compare to pgvector?

pgvector keeps vectors next to relational data in a database you already run. LanceDB keeps them in object storage in a format built for random access and multimodal payloads, and scales storage independently of any server.

Cockroach Labs: Do legacy contracts have different pricing?

Customers with annual or multi-year contracts entered before December 1, 2024 can view legacy pricing terms on a separate page, which apply until their contract renewal date.

Source
LanceDB: What happens to updates and deletes?

Writes append new fragments and mark old rows deleted, with compaction reclaiming space later, so a workload with heavy in-place updates accumulates overhead until compaction runs.

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