Amazon DynamoDB vs CockroachDB Cloud
Amazon DynamoDB
aws.amazon.com
CockroachDB Cloud
cockroachlabs.comSide by side
| Figure | Amazon DynamoDB | CockroachDB Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $0.06/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 4 | 7 |
| Spec score · Databases And Backend | 9.0 (#2) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Spec score · Transaction Data Store Software | 9.0 (#2) | 8.4 (#10) |
| Spec score · Database Software | 8.9 (#11) | 8.5 (#25) |
| Compliance | AWS says DynamoDB security controls and compliance standards address requirements for governments, global banks, and other high-sensitivity organizations. | CockroachDB Cloud Advanced is described as HIPAA-ready and certified against PCI-DSS SAQ-A and SAQ-D requirements; Cockroach Labs also reports ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018 certifications and annual SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 certification. |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Integrations | The feature page lists integrations with AWS services; it describes AWS KMS encryption, IAM access control, and VPC endpoints with AWS PrivateLink. | 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. |
| Security | Customer data is encrypted in transit and at rest by default, and access can be controlled with IAM policies down to specific items and attributes. | CockroachDB Cloud encrypts node-to-node and client-server traffic with TLS, uses cloud-provider disk encryption at rest, and supports column-level encryption. |
Plans
Amazon DynamoDB
- Free tierFree
- On-demand capacityPrice not published
- Provisioned capacityPrice not published
- DynamoDB Free TierFree
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
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DynamoDB is a serverless, managed NoSQL database for applications that need single-digit millisecond performance at any scale, according to AWS. Users do not provision or patch database servers, and tables can scale automatically, including to zero in on-demand mode. Primary keys and global or local secondary indexes provide ways to query data. Global tables support multi-Region, multi-active operation; AWS says they are designed for up to 99.999% availability. The database also supports native vector search for similarity searches and agent memory use cases. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by default, and IAM policies can restrict access to specific items and attributes. Point-in-time recovery provides continuous, per-second backups and restoration within a configured period of 1 to 35 days. A free tier is listed with 25 WCUs, 25 RCUs, and 25 GB of storage per Region and payer account, among other limits. On-demand capacity is billed per request consumed; provisioned capacity is billed for specified capacity even if usage is lower.
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.