developer tier

AFFORDABLE OPEN-SOURCE HOSTING: DEVELOPER TIER

Fully managed services with the same infrastructure as our production plans, sized for development, side projects, and MVPs. From $5/month for PostgreSQL and MySQL, $35/month for Apache Kafka®, and $40/month for OpenSearch®.

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$300 in free credits for new accounts · No credit card required · Cancel anytime

Build without breaking the bank.

Leverage the power of industry-leading open-source data technologies while keeping your budget under control.

Integrations in minutes.

Launch multiple services and link them together instantly.

Zero self-hosting hassle.

Get all the benefits of open-source tools without the burden of maintaining servers, patching software, or managing complex infrastructure yourself.

Scale on your terms.

Stop services to immediately halt billing when you're done, or transition to an enterprise-ready deployment with a single click.

Affordable services, fully managed.

Managed PostgreSQL hosting

Hosted PostgreSQL® as a service

1 dedicated VM
1 CPU
1 GB RAM
8 GB storage
Always-on
Price: From $5/month

Explore PostgreSQL Developer Tier

Managed MySQL hosting

Hosted MySQL as a service

1 dedicated VM
1 CPU
1 GB RAM
8 GB storage
Always-on
Price: From $5/month

Explore MySQL Developer Tier

Managed Kafka streaming

Hosted Apache Kafka® as a service

1 MB/s throughput
20 topics
Max 100 partitions/topic
Up to 3-day retention
Schema Registry + REST proxy
Kafka Connect compatible
Price: From $35/month

Explore Kafka Developer Tier

Managed OpenSearch search

Hosted OpenSearch® as a service

1 dedicated VM
2 vCPU
4 GB RAM
30 GB storage
Always-on
RBAC, 1-day backups, 99.99% SLA
Price: From $40/month

Explore OpenSearch Developer Tier

What are Aiven Developer Tier Services?

Developer Tier Services bridge the gap between our Free Tier and Startup Tiers: real, dedicated, open-source managed infrastructure for the price of a coffee, all without forcing you to think about ops.

Each Developer Tier service is:

Fully managed

Aiven handles provisioning, patching, backups, and monitoring

Hosted on the same platform as paid plans

Same APIs, same console, same SLAs apply when you upgrade

Always on

No idle shutdowns, no expired trials

Predictably priced

Flat monthly fee, network and backup costs included

One-click upgrade

Move to a Business or Premium plan without changing connection strings or migrating data

Ready to build?

Get started in three steps

Create your free Aiven account, no payment details required

Get building

Pick your service

Pick your service: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Apache Kafka®, or OpenSearch®. Provisions in minutes.

Start building

Connect with your preferred tools. Upgrade to a production plan in one click when you outgrow it.

Compare Dev Tier Services

Every Developer Tier service runs always-on, on dedicated infrastructure, encrypted, with real-time backups and one-click upgrades to production plans.

‎	Best for	Specs	Price	Link
PostgreSQL	App backends, APIs, MVPs	1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB storage, networking included	From $5/month	→ View Dev Tier PostgreSQL
MySQL	Web apps & CMS	1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB storage, networking included	From $5/month	→ View Dev Tier MySQL
Apache Kafka	Event streaming & microservices	1 MB/s throughput, 20 topics, 100 partitions, up to 3-day retention, Schema Registry + REST proxy, Kafka Connect compatible	From $35/month	→ View Dev Tier Kafka
OpenSearch	AI-powered search, machine learning, and observability	2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 30 GB storage, networking included	From $40/month	→ View Dev Tier OpenSearch

What we built on Free Tier Kafka

When we ran our Free Tier Kafka competition, the community shipped projects we couldn't have predicted - from weekend arcade games to systems protecting undersea cables. A few favourites:

Chicken invaders

A real-time multiplayer arcade game built in a single weekend on 5 Kafka topics - handling game state, player actions, spectator mode, and replays. Co-winner of the $5,000 prize.

Learn more

A maritime security system

A maritime security system processing 5,000 vessel signals per second with Kafka and Apache Flink. Built as a hobby project, it detected the FITBURG vessel's suspicious behaviour before it severed the Finland–Estonia Elisa cable on New Year's Eve.

Learn more

Delivery notifications

A parcel delivery notification pipeline built end-to-end on Kafka and Flink. Co-winner of the $5,000 prize — and a clean blueprint if you've been wondering how to combine the two.

See the demo

AI-powered logistics for under $5/month

A LangChain + OpenAI + Kafka chatbot and insights system, all running on Aiven's free tier — a deep dive into event-driven architecture for the cost of a coffee.

Learn more

Skylanders for city planning

A £6.80 Raspberry Pi Pico W reading RFID tags and streaming straight into Kafka, paired with generative AI for an interactive city-planning prototype. Built in a month, hardware to streaming.

Learn more

Why Aiven

Same platform as paid plans

Identical infrastructure, tooling, and APIs

Transparent pricing when scaling

No hidden fees - see exactly what you'll pay before you upgrade

No vendor lock-in

All our services are open-source, and if you want to leave we’ll help you move

Compliance

SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR & CCPA.

FAQ

Developer Tier Services are paid plans starting at $5/month for PostgreSQL and MySQL, $35/month for Apache Kafka®, and $40/month for OpenSearch®. They bridge the gap between our free and enterprise plans.

Aiven for PostgreSQL®, Aiven for MySQL, Aiven for Apache Kafka®, and Aiven for OpenSearch®. We're actively evaluating more services for this tier - watch this page for announcements.

Free Tier services are great for quick experiments and learning, but they shut down after periods of inactivity and have tighter resource caps. Developer Tier services run 24/7 on dedicated VMs (or dedicated Kafka resources), give you more storage and throughput, and include Basic Support.

We don't recommend it for mission-critical production. The Developer Tier services still have limitations compared to our enterprise services but may be good enough for some use cases, for everything else you can For live customer-facing workloads, upgrade to a Business or Premium plan.

Yes. Upgrade to a Business, Premium, or Enterprise plan with one click from the Aiven Console. Your connection string and data are preserved.

No. New accounts include $300 in free credits and no payment details are required to sign up.

You can choose a general geographical area (e.g., North America, Europe, Asia Pacific). To choose a specific cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure) or specific region, upgrade to a Business or Enterprise plan.

Basic Support — ticketed help from the Aiven Support Team, typically with next-business-day response.

Stop managing, start building

Get building

AFFORDABLE OPEN-SOURCE HOSTING: DEVELOPER TIER

Affordable services, fully managed.

What are Aiven Developer Tier Services?

Get started in three steps

Compare Dev Tier Services

PostgreSQL

App backends, APIs, MVPs

MySQL

Web apps & CMS

Apache Kafka

Event streaming & microservices

OpenSearch

AI-powered search, machine learning, and observability

What we built on Free Tier Kafka

Why Aiven

FAQ

Affordable services, fully managed.

What are Aiven Developer Tier Services?

Get started in three steps

Compare Dev Tier Services

PostgreSQL

App backends, APIs, MVPs

MySQL

Web apps & CMS

Apache Kafka

Event streaming & microservices

OpenSearch

AI-powered search, machine learning, and observability

What we built on Free Tier Kafka

Why Aiven

FAQ