Is the Developer Tier an 'always-on' service?

Unlike the Free Tier, where services may be powered off after periods of inactivity, Developer Tier services remain running 24/7, ensuring your database is always available for your application.

developer tier

Affordable Postgres and MySQL Hosting

Q: Can I upgrade my tier later?

Absolutely. You can perform a 'one-click' upgrade from the Developer Tier to any Professional or Business plan at any time through the Aiven Console. Your data and connection strings will remain the same.

Q: Which cloud services are available with this service?

While the Developer Tier is limited to PostgreSQL and MySQL, it exists within the wider Aiven Ecosystem. You can connect your Developer Tier database to other Aiven services, like the Free Kafka tier or paid OpenSearch clusters.

$5/month: 99.99% availability, no surprises, no hidden fees.
Enterprise-grade managed PostgreSQL and managed MySQL with backups and support.

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Enterprise-grade reliability, transparent pricing

Enjoy the same dedicated infrastructure and orchestration layer used in our Business and Enterprise plans.

Full compatibility

Includes full PostgreSQL extension support (PostGIS, pg_stat_statements) and native MySQL drivers.

Zero-Downtime

Managed High Availability (HA) upgrades maintain all data and configurations.

Simple Costs

Pricing is based solely on compute resources.

What’s included in the developer tier?

With Aiven’s hosted developer tier for PostgreSQL® and MySQL®, you get a dedicated virtual machine with enterprise-grade features like encryption and real-time backups, perfectly sized for development and testing.

Feature
Dedicated VMs	1
CPU per VM	1
RAM per VM	1 GB
Total storage	8 GB
All networking costs included	✓
Seamless upgrade to other plans	✓
One-click version upgrade	✓
Data encrypted on disk and network	✓
Real-time backups to a remote location	✓
Restore to any point in time (PITR)	Single backup only for disaster recovery

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From zero to query in no time

Experience PostgreSQL as a service at its best. Deploy a fully-managed cluster and run your first query right away.

FAQ

The Developer Tier provides a dedicated single-node virtual machine. For $5/month, you currently get 1 CPU, 1 GB of RAM, and 8 GB of disk storage (compared to 1 GB in the Free Tier). It also includes basic daily backups and access to Basic support.

Yes. Aiven is a fully managed service, meaning we provide and manage the underlying cloud infrastructure (hosting) as well as the database software. You do not need to bring your own cloud account or manage servers.

No, the Developer Tier is a paid plan starting at $5 USD per month. It is positioned between our "Free Tier" (which includes limited-resource options for a free PostgreSQL database and a free MySQL database, with no support) and our "Professional Plans" (high availability, more resources).

Unlike the Free Tier, where services may be powered off after periods of inactivity to save resources, Developer Tier services remain running 24/7, ensuring your database is always available for your application.

The Developer Tier is currently available for Aiven for PostgreSQL® and Aiven for MySQL. We are constantly evaluating adding more services to this tier in the future.

The Developer Tier is intended for test and personal projects. Because it is a single-node service, it does not offer high availability (HA). For mission-critical production workloads, we recommend our Business or Premium plans, which include multi-node clusters and a 99.99% uptime SLA. (Curious about how our production tiers scale? Check out our PostgreSQL performance benchmarks across clouds.)

Yes. Every Developer Tier service includes automated daily backups for disaster recovery. However, advanced features like Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) or database forking are reserved for the Professional tiers.

Absolutely. You can perform a "one-click" upgrade from the Developer Tier to any Professional or Business plan at any time through the Aiven Console. Your data and connection strings will remain the same during the transition.

While you can choose the general geographical area (e.g., North America, Europe, Asia Pacific), the Developer Tier does not allow you to select a specific cloud provider (AWS/GCP/Azure) or a specific region. If you need a specific location or provider, you should look at our Professional plans.

The Developer Tier includes Basic Support. This gives you access to the Aiven Support Team via tickets for help with platform issues. Responses are typically provided on a "next business day" basis.

While the Developer Tier itself is currently limited to PostgreSQL and MySQL, it exists within the wider Aiven Ecosystem. You can connect your Developer Tier database to other Aiven services (like the Free Kafka tier or paid OpenSearch clusters) using standard connection methods to build a complete data pipeline.

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