# Axiom vs Elastic Cloud

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/axiom-vs-elastic-cloud/

Every value below is read from Axiom's and Elastic Cloud's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Axiom | Elastic Cloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Pricing model | A platform fee plus three separate meters — data loaded, query compute in GB-hours, and stored GB — each with an always-free allowance included on every plan and automatic volume discounts above it. | Hosted: resource-based pricing, pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid. Serverless: usage-based pricing, pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid. |
| Regions | Two, both on AWS: US East 1 and EU Central 1. Axiom calls them edge deployments — you pick one per organisation and event data is stored at rest there, while the console stays at app.axiom.co. Datasets in one organisation can sit in different deployments. New ones are added on request rather than published as a roadmap. | Hosted: 60 regions across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud (also Alibaba Cloud and FedRAMP). Serverless: generally available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Axiom: Yes ([source](https://axiom.co/pricing))
- Elastic Cloud: No ([source](https://www.elastic.co/pricing))

### Pricing model

- Axiom: A platform fee plus three separate meters — data loaded, query compute in GB-hours, and stored GB — each with an always-free allowance included on every plan and automatic volume discounts above it. ([source](https://axiom.co/pricing))
- Elastic Cloud: Hosted: resource-based pricing, pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid. Serverless: usage-based pricing, pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid. ([source](https://www.elastic.co/pricing))

### Regions

- Axiom: Two, both on AWS: US East 1 and EU Central 1. Axiom calls them edge deployments — you pick one per organisation and event data is stored at rest there, while the console stays at app.axiom.co. Datasets in one organisation can sit in different deployments. New ones are added on request rather than published as a roadmap. ([source](https://axiom.co/docs/reference/edge-deployments))
- Elastic Cloud: Hosted: 60 regions across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud (also Alibaba Cloud and FedRAMP). Serverless: generally available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure. ([source](https://www.elastic.co/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Axiom if Small projects that want a real telemetry platform for nothing — 500 GB a month loaded with 30-day retention, permanently, is the most generous free allowance in this category.

Pick Elastic Cloud if Teams that need full-text search and observability on the same underlying engine, or that want the option to self-host later — Elastic's dual identity as a search platform and an observability platform is the actual differentiator against single-purpose competitors.

Consider something else: Axiom — Query compute is billed as its own meter in GB-hours, so an expensive dashboard costs money even when ingest is inside the allowance.

Consider something else: Elastic Cloud — The need is narrowly error tracking or APM — a purpose-built tool is usually simpler to operate than standing up an Elasticsearch cluster for one workload, and Elastic Cloud's per-resource pricing doesn't publish a flat entry price the way single-purpose competitors do.

## Documented by only one

- Entry paid plan: Axiom: $25/month platform fee for Cloud, plus usage, with no minimum commitment. The plan carries an always-free allowance of 1 TB loaded, 100 GB-hours of query compute and 100 GB stored.
- When you exceed a cap: Axiom: Billed, then paused per meter. Charges accrue past the Always Free allowance until they reach the spending limit you set, at which point Axiom stops the actions that cost money — and it stops them meter by meter: exhausting query compute halts queries and the monitors that depend on them while ingestion keeps running on an unspent data-loading allowance. Axiom says plainly that this can interrupt service.
- Retention window: Axiom: 30 days on the free Personal plan; configurable on Cloud rather than fixed.
- Self-hostable: Elastic Cloud: Supported
- Hybrid search (vector + keyword): Elastic Cloud: Supported — combines vector similarity scores with BM25F text-relevance scores in a single hybrid query.
- Metadata filtering: Elastic Cloud: Supported — vector search results can be filtered by metadata while preserving approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search speed.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Free tier: Axiom or Elastic Cloud?**

Axiom: Yes
Elastic Cloud: No

**Should I choose Axiom or Elastic Cloud?**

Pick Axiom if Small projects that want a real telemetry platform for nothing — 500 GB a month loaded with 30-day retention, permanently, is the most generous free allowance in this category.
Pick Elastic Cloud if Teams that need full-text search and observability on the same underlying engine, or that want the option to self-host later — Elastic's dual identity as a search platform and an observability platform is the actual differentiator against single-purpose competitors.