Databases · pricing
RisingWave pricing
RisingWave publishes 4 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
As of 31 August 2026, RisingWave pricing is free, then $0.227/hour across 4 published tiers. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.
- Entry price
- Free, then $0.227/hour
- Model
- Per RisingWave Unit hour
- Tiers
- 4
- Free tier
- Yes
RisingWave plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community Edition | Free | 4 | Entry tier |
| Cloud Basic | $0.227/hour | 4 | +$0.227/hour, 4 more features |
| Cloud Pro | On request | 4 | Priced on request |
| Self-managed Enterprise | On request | 4 | Priced on request |
What each tier adds
The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.
Community Edition
FreeThe entry tier. It covers apache 2.0 licence, self-hosted, core streaming engine and connectors, premium features excluded and require a licence key, community support only.
Cloud Basic
$0.227/hourOver Community Edition, this tier adds:
- Billed per RisingWave Unit hour
- Hosted on AWS, GCP or Azure
- Capped at 64 cores
- Standard support and 7 day trial
Cloud Pro
On requestOver Cloud Basic, this tier adds:
- No core limit
- Bring your own cloud option
- Premium features included
- Support with SLA, pay as you go or annual
Self-managed Enterprise
On requestOver Cloud Pro, this tier adds:
- On premises or Kubernetes
- Premium features unlocked by licence
- Annual contract with SLA
- Quarterly success reviews
Where RisingWave stops being free
Community Edition, Free
- Apache 2.0 licence, self-hosted
- Core streaming engine and connectors
- Premium features excluded and require a licence key
- Community support only
Cloud Basic, $0.227/hour
The first thing you pay for:
- Billed per RisingWave Unit hour
- Hosted on AWS, GCP or Azure
- Capped at 64 cores
- Standard support and 7 day trial
What the product covers
The full RisingWave feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Other
- SQL materialised views
- Postgres wire compatibility
- Object storage state
- Source connectors
- Sink connectors
- Iceberg tables
- Watermarks and windowing
- User defined functions
People bring RisingWave in for a team with kafka topics that needs continuously fresh aggregates for a dashboard without standing up a flink cluster, a fraud or risk team maintaining rolling counters and joins across event streams expressed as sql views, a company doing postgres cdc into a real-time denormalised view for search or serving, an analytics group that wants streaming results landed directly into apache iceberg without a separate writer job. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to RisingWave are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Databases
Across the 3 databases tools in this directory that publish a starting price, the median entry point is $234/month. RisingWave starts at $0.227/hour, which puts it below the middle of its category.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RisingWave (this page) | Free, then $0.227/hour | Per RisingWave Unit hour | - | |
| Canary Labs | $3000/year | Per tag band per year | - | vs RisingWave |
| Presto | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | vs RisingWave |
| Privacera | On request | quote | - | vs RisingWave |
| Dremio | Free, then $0.2/hour | Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed | - | vs RisingWave |
| Solace PubSub+ | Free | quote | - | vs RisingWave |
| StarRocks | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | vs RisingWave |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the RisingWave badges page.
Before you pay for RisingWave
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 4 tiers between Free and On request, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
RisingWave runs on linux, docker, kubernetes, cloud, and is published by RisingWave Labs of San Francisco, California, United States. The full record is on the RisingWave review, and the rest of the category is under best databases tools.
RisingWave pricing questions
- How much does RisingWave cost?
- RisingWave publishes 4 tiers, from Free for Community Edition up to On request for Self-managed Enterprise. The entry tier costs nothing.
- Does RisingWave have a free plan?
- Yes. The Community Edition tier costs nothing and covers apache 2.0 licence, self-hosted, core streaming engine and connectors, premium features excluded and require a licence key. Paying starts at $0.227/hour for Cloud Basic.
- What is the difference between Community Edition and Cloud Basic on RisingWave?
- Cloud Basic costs $0.227/hour against Free, and adds billed per risingwave unit hour, hosted on aws, gcp or azure, capped at 64 cores, standard support and 7 day trial.
- Is the Self-managed Enterprise plan on RisingWave worth it?
- That depends entirely on whether you need what it adds, which on the published record is on premises or kubernetes, premium features unlocked by licence, annual contract with sla, quarterly success reviews. It costs On request against $0.227/hour for Cloud Basic. Softwr has not used either tier, so this page can tell you what changes, not whether it is worth the difference to you.
- Is RisingWave expensive for a databases tool?
- It starts below the middle of its category. Across the 3 databases tools in this directory that publish a starting price, the median entry point is $234/month; RisingWave starts at $0.227/hour.
- Which databases tools can I use without paying?
- 5 of the 8 databases tools listed alongside RisingWave have a free tier: Presto, Dremio, Solace PubSub+, StarRocks, EMQX.
- What am I actually paying for with RisingWave?
- The record lists 8 features across 1 area: other. In practice it is brought in for a team with kafka topics that needs continuously fresh aggregates for a dashboard without standing up a flink cluster, a fraud or risk team maintaining rolling counters and joins across event streams expressed as sql views, a company doing postgres cdc into a real-time denormalised view for search or serving.
- Does RisingWave charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 4 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these RisingWave prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare RisingWave against before paying?
- The closest databases tools in this directory are Canary Labs, Presto, Privacera, Dremio. Each has a side-by-side comparison with RisingWave covering price, platforms and features.