Materialize vs RisingWave
Materialize
materialize.com
RisingWave
risingwave.comSide by side
| Figure | Materialize | RisingWave |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.13/mo | $0.23/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 3 |
| Spec score · Streaming Analytics Software | 8.0 (#9) | 8.1 (#6) |
| Spec score · Stream Processing Software | 8.0 (#10) | 8.0 (#11) |
| Spec score · Analytics Data | 8.2 (#12) | 8.1 (#13) |
| Spec score · Stream Analytics Software | 8.1 (#12) | 8.0 (#13) |
| Deployment | Materialize is offered as a fully managed Cloud service, self-managed software for Kubernetes environments, and a Docker-based local development Emulator. | Self-managed deployments support Docker, Kubernetes with Helm charts, cloud VMs, and on-premises bare-metal servers. |
| Founded | 2019 | 2021 |
| Headquarters | New York City, United States | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Product | Materialize describes itself as a live data layer for apps and AI agents that creates up-to-the-second views using SQL. | RisingWave is a distributed SQL streaming platform that ingests, transforms, and serves real-time data. |
| Support | Cloud On-Demand includes chatbot and helpdesk ticket support, while Cloud Capacity includes a dedicated account team and guided onboarding. | RisingWave offers standard support on Basic, premium 24x7 support as an option on Pro, and premium support with SLA and quarterly success reviews for self-managed deployments. |
Plans
Materialize
- Community LicenseFree
- Cloud Capacity$1.50 a year
- Cloud On-Demand$1.50 a month
- Enterprise LicensePrice not published
In their own words
Materialize
Materialize is a live data layer for apps and AI agents that uses SQL to create up-to-the-second views. Rather than rebuilding query results from scratch as data arrives, it updates them incrementally. Connected sources appear as continually updating tables with sub-second freshness. SQL features include multi-way, lateral, and outer joins, recursive SQL, and SUBSCRIBE, which streams query-result changes over a standard Postgres connection.
Materialize is wire-compatible with PostgreSQL and supports clients and tools that work with PostgreSQL. Listed integrations include PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, CockroachDB, Kafka, Model Context Protocol, dbt, and webhooks such as EventBridge and Segment. Transformed updates can go to downstream systems including Kafka and Apache Iceberg. It is available as managed Cloud, self-managed Kubernetes software, and a Docker-based local development Emulator. The free self-managed Community Edition is limited to 24 GiB memory and 48 GiB disk. Cloud On-Demand is $1.50 a month, with usage-based compute, storage, and networking; Cloud Capacity is $1.50 a year, with storage and networking billed separately.
RisingWave
RisingWave is a distributed SQL platform for ingesting, transforming, and serving real-time data. Its SQL interface is wire-compatible with PostgreSQL, so PostgreSQL clients, drivers, and tools can connect. New events incrementally refresh materialized views. Barrier-based checkpointing and consistent snapshots support exactly-once processing, while data is persisted in S3-compatible object storage and connector offsets are checkpointed for delivery durability. RisingWave lists 31+ native connectors, including Kafka, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Iceberg, Snowflake, BigQuery, S3, Redis, and Elasticsearch. Self-managed deployments are Apache 2.0 open source, with Docker, Kubernetes, cloud VM, and on-premises options. The hosted Basic plan is $0.23 a month, pay-as-you-go, limited to 64 cores and available in select regions; a free plan and 7-day trial are also listed. Basic includes standard support. Premium 24x7 support can be purchased with Pro, while self-managed deployments offer premium support with an SLA and quarterly success reviews. Listed platforms include API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, and web.