Actian Zen vs CockroachDB Cloud
Actian Zen
actian.com
CockroachDB Cloud
cockroachlabs.comSide by side
| Figure | Actian Zen | CockroachDB Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $0.06/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 7 |
| Spec score · Sql Databases | 8.4 (#9) | 8.6 (#5) |
| Founded | 1980 | 2015 |
| Headquarters | Santa Clara, California, United States | New York City, United States |
| Integrations | The product page says Zen Enterprise integrates with existing ERP, point-of-sale, and accounting applications. | The maker describes managed data pipelines, native drivers, and connections to third-party observability and logging tools; its integration categories include data streaming, monitoring, AI, developer tools, and infrastructure. |
| Product | Actian Zen is an embedded database for edge-to-cloud data management that combines relational data, vector search, semantic queries, and AI-agent connectivity in a lightweight engine. | CockroachDB Cloud is a fully managed distributed SQL platform for workloads ranging from development and testing to enterprise-critical production applications. |
| Support | Actian Support Services says technical expertise, guidance, and knowledge are available 24/7. | The current pricing page lists a 1-hour P1 support response for Standard and a 30-minute P1 response for Mission Critical. |
| Trial | Actian says its Zen Embedded database trial downloads are full versions with a 30-day temporary license; the downloads page lists v13 packages. | New Cloud organizations receive a 30-day trial with $400 in credits; the trial ends after 30 days or when the credits are used, and clusters are paused afterward. |
Plans
CockroachDB Cloud
- Standard$0.06 a month
- Mission Critical$0.16 a month
- BasicFree
- Cockroach Continuum Standard$0.09 a month
- Cockroach Continuum Mission Critical$0.16 a month
- Standard$0.18 a month
- Advanced$0.60 a month
In their own words
Actian Zen
Actian Zen is an embedded database for managing data from edge devices through on-premises and cloud applications. Its lightweight engine combines relational storage, native vector search, semantic queries, and connectivity for AI agents. Vector search supports up to 1 million vectors, while hybrid queries combine relational filters with semantic similarity. A native MCP server allows agents such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to query local data. Zen supports SQL through ODBC and JDBC, and NoSQL through Btrieve and Btrieve 2 APIs. Semantic search, vector queries, and agent workflows can run offline, including in air-gapped environments. Zen Enterprise is designed for embedded, on-premises, and cloud deployments, including branch and remote field settings, and supports Windows, Linux, macOS, Intel, ARM, VMware, Hyper-V, and Docker. Zen Mobile supports Android and iOS with AES 256-bit encryption for stored data. Edge supports over 100 concurrent users; Enterprise is designed for thousands. A 30-day trial is available, with paid pricing from $417/mo (annual).
CockroachDB Cloud
CockroachDB Cloud is a managed distributed SQL platform for development, testing, and production workloads. It provisions clusters, scales compute and storage, performs rolling upgrades, and manages backups. The database supports ACID transactions and can scale reads and writes horizontally without manual sharding. Deployments can span AWS, Azure, and GCP, including multiple providers and regions. Cockroach Labs' Terraform provider and Cloud APIs support operation automation. Security features include TLS for traffic between clients and servers and between nodes, cloud-provider disk encryption at rest, and column-level encryption. The listed plans include Basic at free and Standard at $0.06 a month; usage is metered by the minute, billed monthly, and rates vary by region. New Cloud organizations receive a 30-day trial with $400 in credits. The trial ends after 30 days or when the credits run out, and clusters are then paused. Pricing terms also distinguish deployments created before and from September 15, 2026, so the applicable plan depends on deployment timing.