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Databases · head to head

SurrealDB vs turbopuffer

SurrealDB logo

SurrealDB

Databases

Multi-model database combining documents, graphs, vectors and time-series

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 SurrealDB has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: SurrealDB the listed $0.192/node/hr Scale pricing lacks transparent higher-tier rates, requiring a sales conversation for full production sizing.; 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.
  • They diverge on capability: SurrealDB covers Multi-model engine, turbopuffer covers Object storage architecture.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which SurrealDB and turbopuffer actually diverge.

Attributes where SurrealDB and turbopuffer differ
AttributeSurrealDBturbopuffer
Starting priceFree$16/month
Pricing modelusage-basedsubscription
Free tierYesNo
Platformsweb, api, windows, mac, linuxWeb
Founded2022Unknown

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 SurrealDB

  • Multi-model engine
  • ACID transactions
  • Hybrid retrieval
  • Horizontal scaling
  • Multi-region disaster recovery
  • FIPS-compliant cryptography

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.

SurrealDB

  • AI agent memory and retrieval-augmented generationnot turbopuffer
  • Applications needing documents, graphs and vectors in one databasenot turbopuffer
  • Knowledge graph construction from unstructured datanot turbopuffer
  • Regulated workloads requiring SOC2/ISO27001/HIPAA-eligible hostingnot turbopuffer

turbopuffer

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

Where each one falls short

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

SurrealDB

  • The listed $0.192/node/hr Scale pricing lacks transparent higher-tier rates, requiring a sales conversation for full production sizing.
  • As a newer multi-model database, it has a smaller ecosystem of drivers, ORMs and community tooling than established single-model databases.
  • HIPAA compliance is only available as an Enterprise add-on rather than included in standard paid tiers.
  • Combining multiple data models in one engine can add query-planning complexity compared to purpose-built single-model databases.

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

SurrealDB

Free
  • StartFree
    • 1 free instance, then from $0.021/hr
    • 1GB storage free forever
    • Vertical scaling to terabytes
  • Scale$0.192/month
    • $0.192/node/hr
    • Production-grade fault tolerance
    • Horizontal scaling to petabytes
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Self-hosted, custom pricing
    • Clustered fault-tolerant deployments
    • FIPS-compliant cryptography

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 SurrealDB if

  • You need multi-model engine.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on web, api, windows, mac, linux.
  • You also want acid transactions.
SurrealDB review

Choose turbopuffer if

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

Questions people ask

Is SurrealDB or turbopuffer better?
Neither clearly leads. SurrealDB 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, SurrealDB or turbopuffer?
SurrealDB has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for SurrealDB and $16/month for turbopuffer.
Does SurrealDB or turbopuffer run on more platforms?
SurrealDB runs on web, api, windows, mac, linux. turbopuffer runs on Web.
Can I use SurrealDB for free?
Yes. SurrealDB has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. turbopuffer starts at $16/month.
What is SurrealDB best used for?
SurrealDB is most often used for ai agent memory and retrieval-augmented generation, applications needing documents, graphs and vectors in one database, knowledge graph construction from unstructured data, regulated workloads requiring soc2/iso27001/hipaa-eligible hosting. Of those, ai agent memory and retrieval-augmented generation and applications needing documents, graphs and vectors in one database are not what turbopuffer is typically brought in for.
What can SurrealDB do that turbopuffer cannot?
SurrealDB covers Multi-model engine, ACID transactions, Hybrid retrieval, Horizontal scaling. turbopuffer covers Object storage architecture, Namespaces, Vector search, Full-text search.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

SurrealDB: What does SurrealDB cost?

SurrealDB Cloud's Start plan is free with one free instance (then from $0.021/hr), the Scale plan runs $0.192/node/hr for production workloads, and Enterprise self-hosted deployments use 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.

SurrealDB: Is there a free plan and what are its limits?

Yes, the Start plan includes one free instance with 1GB of storage free forever and 1GB of outbound data transfer per month, aimed at prototypes and development.

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.

SurrealDB: How is billing handled?

Customers are invoiced monthly based on actual usage in a pay-as-you-go model with no long-term commitments, though commitment-based discounts are available.

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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