Aiven for PostgreSQL vs HSQLDB
Aiven for PostgreSQL
aiven.io
HSQLDB
hsqldb.orgSide by side
| Figure | Aiven for PostgreSQL | HSQLDB |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $5/mo | $8.33/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 11 |
| Spec score · Relational Databases | 9.3 (#1) | 9.1 (#2) |
| Developer tooling | The platform supports its Console, Terraform provider, CLI and Kubernetes Operator through the REST API. | The distribution includes SQLTool command-line administration, two GUI database managers, a transfer utility and a test/script utility. |
| Documentation depth | The PostgreSQL documentation covers connections, querying, service and database management, scaling, maintenance, high availability, backups, monitoring, integrations and extensions. | The project publishes HTML, PDF and text guides, JavaDoc for public classes, utilities documentation, examples, tests and SQL scripts. |
| Founded | 2016 | 2001 |
| Integrations | PostgreSQL can integrate with Aiven for Grafana for visualization and can send metrics to external endpoints such as Datadog. | The project documents JDBC and ODBC connectivity and integration with OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice. |
| Rating on Capterra | 4.7 out of 5 from 71 reviews. | 4.3 out of 5 from 3 reviews. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.4 out of 5 from 78 reviews. | 4.0 out of 5 from 22 reviews. |
| Security controls | Aiven states that services use dedicated VMs, encryption in transit and at rest, IP allowlists, SAML SSO, VPC peering, BYOC and AWS/Azure PrivateLink. | Security features include passwords, users, roles, GRANT/REVOKE privileges and fine-grained row-level access control. |
| Support | Paid services include Basic support, while customers using only free services are directed to documentation and do not receive support services. | Support options include a help forum, a user mailing list, bug and feature request trackers, paid SupportWare, and professional commercial support. |
| What it does | Aiven for PostgreSQL is a fully managed hosted relational database service. | HSQLDB (HyperSQL) is a Java relational database engine supporting transactional in-memory and disk tables in embedded or server deployments. |
Plans
Aiven for PostgreSQL
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- Developer$5 a month
- Developer$5 a month
- Hobbyist$12 a month
- Startup$75 a month
- Startup$75 a month
- Business$180 a month
- Business$180 a month
- Premium$270 a month
HSQLDB
- Developer subscription$100 a year
- Basic Corporate subscriptionPrice not published
- Premier Corporate subscription$2,500 a year
- HSQLDBFree
- HSQLDB softwareFree
- Developer SupportWare$100 a year
- SupportWare Developer subscription$100 a year
- Basic Corporate SupportWare$500 a year
- SupportWare Basic Corporate subscription$500 a year
- Premier Corporate SupportWare$2,500 a year
In their own words
Aiven for PostgreSQL
Aiven for PostgreSQL is a managed, hosted relational database service built on open-source PostgreSQL. It automates setup, maintenance, patching, and scaling, and includes automatic failover and point-in-time recovery. The cloud service can run across providers including AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. Aiven lists more than 50 PostgreSQL extensions, including PostGIS, pgvector, TimescaleDB, and pg_cron, and describes uses in vector search and AI applications. It can integrate with Aiven for Grafana and send metrics to external endpoints such as Datadog. The free tier has a single node, 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, and 1 GB storage; it has no integrations or connection pooling and a max_connections limit of 20. That tier is excluded from the advertised 99.99% uptime SLA and receives no support services. The Free plan is free; Developer is $5 a month, Startup starts at $75 a month, and Business starts at $180 a month. Paid services include Basic support.
HSQLDB
HSQLDB is a Java-based relational database engine for embedded or server use, with both in-memory and disk-based tables. It supports SQL:2023 core features and many optional features, plus lock-based and MVCC transaction models; the engine is fully multithreaded. Listed capabilities include JSON constructor functions, CSV loading and unloading, temporal system-versioned tables, row-level access control, and log-based replica synchronization. It includes a command-line SQL tool and simple GUI query tools. The latest official release listed is version 2.7.4, compatible with JDK 8 and above, and packages include Java 11 module jars as well as Java 8 jars for HSQLDB and SQL Tool. HSQLDB is self-hosted, with high availability, read replicas, and JSON data support listed. Its default combined limit for CACHED tables is 8TB, extendable to 256TB with a connection property; each TEXT table is limited to 256GB, and memory tables depend on available memory. The software is free to use in commercial products when license terms are met; its licenses are based on the new BSD License. The HSQLDB plan is free. A Developer subscription is $100 a year; Premier Corporate is $2,500 a year at the base level. Support options include community channels and paid commercial support.