CockroachDB — Free Service Overview

CockroachDB is a Distributed SQL database. The service is operated by Cockroach Labs, Inc., headquartered in New York City, USA, and was founded in 2015 (company); 1.0 GA 2017. Privately held; raised Series F in 2021 led by Greenoaks at a $5B valuation; founders Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis, Ben Darnell (ex-Google). Within its category, CockroachDB positions on three pillars: cloud hosting coverage, product differentiation, and pricing transparency.

Quick facts · Operator: Cockroach Labs, Inc. · HQ: New York City, USA · Founded: 2015 (company); 1.0 GA 2017 · Status: Privately held; raised Series F in 2021 led by Greenoaks at a $5B valuation; founders Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis, Ben Darnell (ex-Google) · See live pricing table below for current rates in your country.

What is CockroachDB?

CockroachDB sits in the cloud hosting category. CockroachDB is a Distributed SQL database. In 2025-2026 its differentiator is: CockroachDB v24.3 (late 2024) shipped Physical Cluster Replication for active-passive disaster recovery and Vector indexes for pgvector-style AI workloads; v25 in 2025 focuses on serverless cost reduction. Subger tracks CockroachDB alongside competing cloud hosting services so subscribers can compare pricing, cancellation steps, and live deals in one place.

Why choose CockroachDB

Product positioning

CockroachDB positions in the cloud hosting category as: Distributed SQL database. Its 2025-2026 product priorities centre on cockroachdb v24.3 (late 2024) shipped physical cluster replication for active-passive disaster recovery and vector indexes for pgvector-style ai workloads; v25 in 2025 focuses on serverless cost reduction.

Feature breadth

• PostgreSQL wire compatibility — Drop-in for most Postgres drivers; supports SQL, JOINs, transactions, indexes, JSONB.
• Distributed ACID transactions — Serializable isolation across geographically distributed nodes via Raft consensus.
• Multi-region survival — Configurable survival goals (zone or region failure) with automatic rebalancing.
• Change Data Capture — Native CDC to Kafka, Pulsar, webhook sinks for downstream pipelines.
• Backup & Physical Cluster Replication — Incremental backups to S3/GCS plus PCR active-passive DR added in v24.3.
• Vector search (v24.3+) — Native pgvector-compatible vector indexes for embedding workloads.

2025-2026 product evolution

CockroachDB continues to evolve its product through 2025-2026; the most notable recent change is: CockroachDB v24.3 (late 2024) shipped Physical Cluster Replication for active-passive disaster recovery and Vector indexes for pgvector-style AI workloads; v25 in 2025 focuses on serverless cost reduction. Subger watches the operator's announcement pages and pricing pages for plan structure changes and reflects them in the live pricing table that accompanies this page.

Where CockroachDB fits among competitors

CockroachDB competes within the broader cloud hosting category. Subscribers comparing options should weigh its pricing transparency, contract terms, and the differentiator described above against alternatives in Subger's Cloud hosting comparison hub.

Pricing in 2026

CockroachDB publishes a tiered model with the following current tiers (anchor pricing — see the live pricing table below for the exact rate in your country).

Subger tracks plan changes country by country, so verify the live rate for your market in the table below this description.

Product capabilities and integrations

CockroachDB ships its capabilities as a SaaS product with API + UI access. CockroachDB v24.3 (late 2024) shipped Physical Cluster Replication for active-passive disaster recovery and Vector indexes for pgvector-style AI workloads; v25 in 2025 focuses on serverless cost reduction.

CockroachDB apps and platform support

CockroachDB ships as a SaaS product accessed via the web. Higher-tier customers may use desktop and mobile clients, REST APIs, webhooks, and SDKs to integrate the platform into their own systems. Authentication supports email/password plus, on business-and-enterprise tiers, single sign-on (SSO via SAML / OIDC) with directories like Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, and Google Workspace. Audit logs, role-based access control, and per-team workspaces are standard on the team tier upward.

Use cases CockroachDB fits

• Globally distributed SaaS — Apps needing multi-region active-active writes with strong consistency.
• Financial-services systems of record — Bank/fintech ledgers where serializable ACID and point-in-time recovery are mandatory.
• Postgres migrations needing horizontal scale — Teams outgrowing single-node Postgres but unwilling to denormalise to NoSQL.

CockroachDB is most useful for households or teams whose primary need aligns with the strengths described above.

Operator profile and corporate context

Legal entity and ownership

CockroachDB is operated by Cockroach Labs, Inc., with primary operations based in New York City, USA. The product line was founded in 2015 (company); 1.0 GA 2017. Corporate status: Privately held; raised Series F in 2021 led by Greenoaks at a $5B valuation; founders Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis, Ben Darnell (ex-Google). Subger records the operator's published legal name to make it easier for subscribers to verify charges on bank statements, locate the correct cancellation contact, and identify the regulator responsible for consumer-protection complaints in the operator's home market.

Headquarters and regional footprint

The operator's headquarters in New York City, USA is the centre of product, billing, and customer-support operations. Tax invoicing, contract law, and data-protection oversight typically follow the rules of the headquarters jurisdiction unless the operator has set up a separate billing entity for a given country. Subger flags country-specific billing entities in the pricing table when they differ from the global parent.

Product history and recent direction

Since 2015 (company); 1.0 GA 2017, CockroachDB has evolved its cloud hosting proposition through repeated tier changes, product expansion, and (where applicable) acquisitions or partnerships. The most material 2025-2026 development that subscribers should know about is: CockroachDB v24.3 (late 2024) shipped Physical Cluster Replication for active-passive disaster recovery and Vector indexes for pgvector-style AI workloads; v25 in 2025 focuses on serverless cost reduction. Subger tracks each change to the public tier list and reflects updated pricing within the CockroachDB pricing card whenever the operator publishes a new rate.

Market context and what to monitor

Where CockroachDB sits in the cloud hosting landscape

CockroachDB competes inside the cloud hosting category alongside other operators that target the same distributed sql database need. The buying decision usually comes down to the headline monthly price, the renewal-vs-introductory rate, contract length, and the specific feature mix at each tier. CockroachDB currently publishes 4 tier(s) — CockroachDB Serverless (Free) ($0), Serverless paid (Pay-as-you-go), Dedicated (From ~$400/mo), Self-hosted Enterprise (Custom) — which gives shoppers a clear ladder from entry-level (CockroachDB Serverless (Free)) to the top option (Self-hosted Enterprise).

Renewal-vs-introductory pricing

Many operators in this category quote a low introductory rate that resets to a higher renewal price after the first contract period. Where CockroachDB follows that pattern, Subger captures the renewal step-up in the true-price tracker so subscribers can budget the year-two cost honestly. Where pricing is flat across the contract life, that is noted as well.

What to monitor over the next 12 months

The most important signals for CockroachDB subscribers in 2025-2026 are: (a) any change to the public tier list that adds, removes, or rebrands an existing plan; (b) regional price increases tied to inflation or currency moves; (c) feature additions or removals that materially change tier-vs-tier comparisons; and (d) contract-term changes (length, early-exit fees, automatic-renewal mechanics). Subger watches the operator's pricing page and customer-facing announcements and surfaces relevant changes in the CockroachDB pricing card and the Subger newsletter for the Cloud hosting comparison hub.

How Subger keeps CockroachDB pricing honest

Subger mirrors the operator's published price list per country, converts to a comparable currency where helpful, and exposes the renewal-vs-introductory delta directly under the pricing table. Subscribers can use the CockroachDB true-price tracker to see the projected 12-month cost at today's rate and the CockroachDB deals page to monitor active offers in their market.

Frequently asked questions

Is CockroachDB Postgres-compatible?

It implements the PostgreSQL wire protocol and most SQL surface; common ORMs (Prisma, GORM, SQLAlchemy, Hibernate) work with minor dialect adjustments.

What was the 2024 licence change?

Cockroach Labs moved to the CockroachDB Software License (CSL) in mid-2024 — source-available but no longer Apache 2.0 / BSL. Existing free Core users were migrated to the Enterprise tier with a free-for-small-customers track.

Does Serverless have cold starts?

Yes — idle clusters scale to zero compute. First query after a quiet period can incur a few seconds of warm-up. Production workloads usually choose Dedicated.

How does it compare to Spanner or Yugabyte?

CockroachDB targets the same distributed-SQL niche as Google Spanner and YugabyteDB; the differentiators are Postgres-wire compatibility and self-hostable Enterprise.

Where is data stored on Serverless?

Customers pick AWS or GCP regions in US, EU, or AP; Serverless is single-region by default with multi-region available on Dedicated/Enterprise.

What does Subger track for CockroachDB?

Subger mirrors CockroachDB Cloud plan tiers and renewal pricing so teams can compare year-one budgets across regions.

Get started with CockroachDB

For the live pricing table in your country, scroll up to the pricing tiers section. Subger maintains the cancellation guide, true-price tracker, and active deal list for CockroachDB in your country.

Related Subger guides

• How to cancel CockroachDB — step-by-step cancellation walkthrough
• CockroachDB deals — current promotional offers
• CockroachDB promo codes — active discount codes
• CockroachDB true-price tracker — intro-vs-renewal math
• Cloud hosting comparison hub — Subger's editorial cloud hosting pillar