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Databases · head to head

Ninox vs turbopuffer

Ninox logo

Ninox

Databases

The database for teams

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
turbopuffer logo

turbopuffer

Databases

Closed-source vector and full-text search service built directly on object storage, with cold queries measured in seconds rather than milliseconds.

From
$16/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Ninox has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Ninox free plan limited to 5 users and 5,000 records; turbopuffer a cold namespace pays object storage latency on the first query, with a documented p90 around 1,214 ms on a million documents, so any interactive search box needs the data kept warm or the user waits about a second.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Ninox and turbopuffer actually diverge.

Attributes where Ninox and turbopuffer differ
AttributeNinoxturbopuffer
Starting priceFree$16/month
Pricing modelfreemiumsubscription
Free tierYesNo

Identical on both: platforms (Web), 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 Ninox

Nothing recorded that turbopuffer does not also cover.

Only in turbopuffer

  • Object storage architecture
  • Namespaces
  • Vector search
  • Full-text search
  • Attribute filtering
  • Documented limits
  • Configurable consistency
  • Durable writes

What people use each for

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

Ninox

  • No-code database solutions for small to medium teamsnot turbopuffer
  • Workflow automation and process managementnot turbopuffer
  • Customer data and project tracking with custom viewsnot turbopuffer

turbopuffer

  • A product with one search index per customer and thousands of customers, most of whose data is idle on any given daynot Ninox
  • Very large corpora where holding every vector in memory is the dominant cost and occasional cold-query latency is acceptablenot Ninox
  • Hybrid retrieval combining BM25 and vector search where running and synchronising two separate systems is the problem being solvednot Ninox
  • Retrieval for agent and assistant products where indexes are created and destroyed frequently and per-index overhead must be near zeronot Ninox

Where each one falls short

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

Ninox

  • Free plan limited to 5 users and 5,000 records
  • API call limits restrict automation on lower tiers (1,000/month free, 10,000/month team)
  • Only 7-day history on free plan vs. unlimited on Business

turbopuffer

  • A cold namespace pays object storage latency on the first query, with a documented p90 around 1,214 ms on a million documents, so any interactive search box needs the data kept warm or the user waits about a second.
  • Queries are eventually consistent by default, and after roughly 128 MiB of outstanding writes new data is invisible until indexed, which the vendor puts at tens of seconds for small namespaces and tens of minutes for large ones, so a bulk re-index is not immediately queryable.
  • It is closed source with no community edition, so single-tenant or bring-your-own-cloud deployment is a commercial negotiation rather than a deployment choice, and there is no path to running it yourself if the relationship ends.
  • Per-namespace ceilings, roughly 10,000 writes per second, 32 MB/s and 500 million documents per shard, mean a single enormous index has to be sharded across namespaces by your application rather than by the service.
  • It is a search engine, not a database: there are no joins, no cross-document transactions and no SQL, so it sits beside a primary datastore and keeping the two in step is work that belongs to you.

Pricing, plan by plan

Ninox

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Up to 5 users
    • 100 MB storage
    • Up to 5,000 records
  • Team$25/month
    • 5 GB storage per user
    • 50,000 records per user
    • 10,000 API calls per user per month
  • Business$40/month
    • 10 GB storage per user
    • 250,000 records per user
    • 50,000 API calls per user per month
  • Enterprise$null/custom
    • Custom pricing available
    • Dedicated support
    • Custom solutions and governance

turbopuffer

$16/month
  • Launch$16/month
    • All database features
    • Multi-tenancy deployment
    • SOC2 & GDPR-ready DPA
  • Scale$256/month
    • Everything in Launch
    • HIPAA-ready BAA
    • Single Sign-On (SSO)
  • Enterprise$4096/month
    • Everything in Scale
    • Single-tenancy & BYOC deployment options
    • Private networking

Which should you pick?

Choose Ninox if

  • You want to start without paying.
Ninox review

Choose turbopuffer if

  • You need object storage architecture.
  • You also want namespaces.
turbopuffer review

Questions people ask

Is Ninox or turbopuffer better?
Neither clearly leads. Ninox starts at Free and turbopuffer at $16/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Ninox or turbopuffer?
Ninox has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Ninox and $16/month for turbopuffer.
Does Ninox or turbopuffer run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Ninox for free?
Yes. Ninox has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. turbopuffer starts at $16/month.
What is Ninox best used for?
Ninox is most often used for no-code database solutions for small to medium teams, workflow automation and process management, customer data and project tracking with custom views. Of those, no-code database solutions for small to medium teams and workflow automation and process management are not what turbopuffer is typically brought in for.
What can Ninox do that turbopuffer cannot?
turbopuffer covers Object storage architecture, Namespaces, Vector search, Full-text search.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Ninox: How much does Ninox cost?

Ninox is free for individuals with up to 5 users. Team plan is 25 EUR per user per month (billed annually), and Business plan is 40 EUR per user per month (billed annually). Enterprise plans have custom pricing.

Source
turbopuffer: Can I self-host turbopuffer?

There is no open source or community edition. Single-tenant and bring-your-own-cloud deployments exist as commercial arrangements, but there is no way to run it independently of the vendor.

Ninox: Is Ninox free?

Yes, Ninox offers a free plan for up to 5 users with 100 MB storage and 5,000 records. No payment required to start, and includes all core views: table, form, chart, kanban, maps, and calendar.

Source
turbopuffer: How fast is it really?

Warm queries perform comparably to in-memory search engines. Cold queries, where data is not cached, have a documented p90 around 1,214 ms on a million documents. Write p90 is around 248 ms for a 512 KB upsert because writes go straight to object storage.

Ninox: What is Ninox Team plan pricing?

The Team plan costs 25 EUR per user per month (billed annually). It includes 5 GB storage per user, 50,000 records, 10,000 API calls per month per user, and 30-day history. Annual billing is required.

Source
turbopuffer: Is it consistent?

Eventually consistent by default, with the vendor reporting that over 99.8% of queries return consistent data. Strong consistency can be requested per query at a latency cost. Large write bursts have a longer visibility delay while indexing catches up.

turbopuffer: What is it best at?

Large numbers of namespaces where most are idle. The architecture makes cold data cheap to keep, which is exactly the shape of a multi-tenant product with a long tail of inactive customers.

turbopuffer: What are the hard limits?

Up to 128 billion documents and 256 TB per namespace, 500 million documents per shard, 64 MiB per document, 10,752 dense vector dimensions, roughly 10,000 writes per second per namespace and a maximum result set of 10,000.

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