Overview
CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database designed for horizontal scale, strong consistency, and resilience to failures at the node, zone, region, or cloud level. It uses PostgreSQL wire protocol so most Postgres drivers and ORMs work without modification, and implements a Raft-based replication layer that automatically rebalances data and survives the loss of an arbitrary minority of replicas. Cockroach Labs operates a managed cloud (CockroachDB Cloud) across AWS, GCP, and Azure with single-region (Standard, Advanced) and multi-region topologies.
The 2024 licence change moved the source code from the BSL/MIT mix to the CockroachDB Software Licence (CSL) — non-production use remains free, but commercial production workloads require an Enterprise subscription or use of CockroachDB Cloud. The 2025 v25 releases introduced PL/pgSQL compatibility, row-level TTL, faster bulk imports, and managed vector search. CockroachDB is the most-deployed Spanner-style architecture outside of Google Cloud and is the recommended choice for multi-cloud distributed SQL.
Key Features
- PostgreSQL wire protocol compatibility — most pg drivers and ORMs work unchanged
- Distributed transactions with serializable isolation by default
- Multi-region topologies — regional-by-row, global tables, region survival
- Survives node, AZ, region, or cloud-provider failure with no operator intervention
- Online schema changes — no table locking for most DDL operations
- Row-level TTL for automatic expiry without scheduled jobs
- Change Data Capture (CDC) to Kafka, Pulsar, webhook, cloud storage
- Backup and restore with incremental backups to S3, GCS, Azure Blob
- PL/pgSQL stored procedures and triggers (v25)
- Vector data type with HNSW index (v25)
- SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, PCI DSS compliance for CockroachDB Cloud
- Physical Cluster Replication for cross-region active-passive DR
Pricing
| Plan | Model | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| CockroachDB Cloud Basic | Free / serverless | $0 (10 GB storage, 50M RU/month) |
| CockroachDB Cloud Basic (paid) | Per Request Unit + storage | $0.20 per 1M RU + $0.50/GB/month |
| CockroachDB Cloud Standard | Per vCPU/hour + storage | From ~$0.50/vCPU/hour (multi-AZ HA) |
| CockroachDB Cloud Advanced | Per vCPU/hour + storage | From ~$0.95/vCPU/hour (multi-region, PCI, HIPAA) |
| CockroachDB Enterprise (self-hosted) | Per vCPU/year | ~$1,400–2,200/vCPU/year (annual subscription) |
Pricing verified May 2026 from Cockroach Labs public pricing. The 2024 unified pricing simplified the previous Serverless/Dedicated split into Basic/Standard/Advanced. Enterprise self-hosted requires direct quote and varies by contract size. Reserved commits offer 20–30% discount.
Strengths
- Strongest distributed SQL story outside of Google Cloud Spanner; multi-cloud portable
- PostgreSQL wire compatibility enables incremental migration from existing Postgres apps
- Survives region or cloud failures with serializable consistency
- Operational simplicity — automatic rebalancing, online schema changes, no manual sharding
- Multi-region topologies are first-class, not bolted on after the fact
- Strong compliance posture for SaaS providers operating across geographies
Limitations
- 2024 CSL licence change removed core-OSS rights for production use
- Single-region performance is typically slower than vanilla PostgreSQL on equivalent hardware
- Some PostgreSQL features unsupported (CREATE TYPE complex, partial XML, several extensions)
- Cost rises rapidly with multi-region Advanced and PCI/HIPAA compliance tiers
- Operational debugging is more complex than a single-node Postgres — distributed traces matter