MySQL, from "Hello World" to High Availability

In the world of open-source databases, MySQL is the engine behind millions of applications, and at Aiven, we believe
managing it shouldn't keep you up at night. Our platform is built to grow with you, from when you're just getting started all the way through to enterprise scale.

Find your starting point

Not every project begins with a million users. Sometimes it starts with a single CREATE TABLE command on a quiet afternoon.

• The Prototyper: If you’re learning the ropes or testing a new schema, our Free tier is your sandbox. It’s a full featured MySQL instance that costs exactly $0, forever.
• The Builder: When that prototype starts looking more like a product, the $5/month Developer tier gives you a dedicated, always-on environment. It’s the sweet spot for side projects and MVPs ("minimal viable product") that need reliability without the enterprise price tag.
• The Scaler: For production workloads where downtime isn't an option, our Professional tier (including Startup, Business, and Premium plans) offers the high-availability peace of mind that modern businesses require. Check out the Plans & Pricing to see how we compare across different cloud providers.

Not quite the same thing, but let's not forget:

• The Startup: This is how Aiven itself began, and we believe in paying forward with our Aiven for Startups program - see more further down the page.

Whatever your starting point, you can always change tier or plan at need, whether to scale up for more resources or down to a lower cost solution. All at the click of a button in the Aiven console.

Zero-cost exploration: The Free tier

The Free tier is all about getting you started, ready to learn and explore. You get a single-node MySQL instance with 1 CPU and 1GB of RAM. It’s the perfect environment for learning the nuances of MySQL, building small-scale internal tools or bots, or testing.

Note: To keep the platform efficient, free services may power down during long periods of inactivity, but they’re always just one click away from waking up.

Going steady: The Developer tier

Moving to $5/month changes the game. It gives you 8GB of storage, Basic Support and a dedicated VM that doesn't power off.

This tier is the sweet spot for individual developers.
It's where you can host your personal portfolio, your blog backend, or the API for your latest mobile app. It’s robust, consistent, and provides the foundation for "real-world" testing - that 8GB lets you handle serious amounts of data, enough for a production-ready MVP for almost any B2B SaaS.

Mission-critical performance: The Professional tier

When your database becomes the heart of your company, you need more than just "up," you need "never down." The Professional tier unlocks the full power of the Aiven platform:

• High Availability: Automatic failover means that if a node goes down, a standby is ready to take over instantly.
• Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR): Roll back your database to earlier states (from 2 days to 30, depending on the plan).
• Infrastructure Control: Deploy into your own VPC, choose specific regions
  for low latency, and select the cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure) that fits
  your existing stack.

Note: the Hobbyist tier doesn't provide high availability, has limited cloud choice, and only supports backup for disaster recovery. It's a bridge between the developer tier and the Startup plan.

Which path is yours?

Smooth transitions between tiers

The best part of Aiven services? You're never locked into a particular plan.
Click "Change Plan" in our console and Aiven will do the heavy lifting of provisioning new nodes in the background, synchronizing your data, and switching DNS, while your app stays online.

• Upgrade when
  your "side project" suddenly becomes your company's profit center.
  Scale from a
  single Free or Developer node to a multi-node Business cluster in the Aiven
  Console with zero manual data migration.

• Downgrade if you no longer need those resources. As long as your data fits, scale back to a smaller plan to save costs.

Supporting your growth: Aiven for Startups

Building the next big thing? We want to help you get there. Aiven for
Startups provides eligible companies with up to $100,000 in credits for
a year. It’s our way of letting you use our most powerful Professional plans
while you focus on finding your product-market fit.

Beyond that, you get access to technical experts, community events, and the ability to concentrate on your product instead of your infrastructure.

Apply for Aiven for Startups here

Find out more

Now you know about the different tiers, dig deeper to find out how to get the most from Aiven for MySQL:

• MySQL Service Pricing: The nitty-gritty details on every plan.
• High Availability in MySQL: How we keep your data safe and accessible.
• Upgrading and downgrading: How to change a service plan using our console, Terraform, or the command line.
• Bring your existing data over with minimal downtime: Migrate to Aiven for MySQL using the console or CLI.
• Learn how to connect to Aiven for MySQL

Ready to get started? Create your free account and have a MySQL instance running in a few minutes.