# Nile vs ScaleGrid

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/nile-vs-scalegrid/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Nile | ScaleGrid |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes — Ongoing $0 Free plan: 50M query tokens, 1 GB storage, 500 connections, no pauses. | No |
| Kind of free offer | Free tier | Free trial |
| Entry paid plan | $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month. | Dedicated Hosting starts at $10/month for Redis; $13/month PostgreSQL, $18/month MongoDB, $23/month MySQL, all-inclusive of machine, disk and network costs. From the Dedicated Hosting Plans doc; the live /pricing/ calculator quotes higher figures (see notes). |
| Pricing model | Priced on queries rather than instances, with a $15 base for Pro. Nile's own framing is "Pay for queries, not for instances", and additional tokens are $0.05 per million. | Two models: Dedicated Hosting, an all-inclusive plan covering machine, disk and network cost; or Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC), management-only pricing where the cloud provider is billed separately. |
| Storage (entry plan) | 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB. | 18 GB storage on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 1 GB RAM); IOPS listed as N/A. Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path. |
| Memory (entry plan) | No memory figure published: serverless compute is billed in query tokens, abstract units of CPU and memory, 50 million included on the Free plan. | 1 GB RAM on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 18 GB storage). Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path. |
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported — PgBouncer for PostgreSQL, enabled at cluster creation or later, with pooling mode and pool size set by you. |
| Regions | Two regions selectable for a new database: AWS_US_WEST_2 (AWS US West, Oregon) and AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1 (AWS Europe, Frankfurt). The separate list-available-regions endpoint enumerates a third value, AZURE_EASTUS. | Six cloud providers: AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, DigitalOcean, Oracle Cloud (OCI) and Akamai. Specific regional availability is not published on the pricing or product pages. |
| Engine | PostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited. | MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ and SQL Server. |
| Connection limit | 10,000 connections on Pro, with connection pooling included. | No platform cap published: max_connections (maximum permitted simultaneous client connections) is listed as a customer-editable MySQL server parameter in the ScaleGrid console. |
| When idle | No cold start on Pro — Nile lists it as a plan feature rather than a behaviour to configure. | Manual pause/resume on Bring Your Own Cloud clusters: a paused cluster's nodes are stopped and its cloud VM costs stop, but ScaleGrid management costs continue and the data is unreachable until resumed. Only standard clusters using persistent storage; high-performance local-SSD clusters cannot be paused. |
| Database branching | Not supported — Pricing marks Branching 'Coming soon': one branch Free, 50 Pro, unlimited Scale. | Limited — Clone copies a backup's config and contents into a new, separately billed cluster, not an in-place branch. |
| Backup retention | Three backups taken daily; restore is request-based through support and available on paid tiers only. No retention window is published. | Up to five backups per deployment on ScaleGrid's dedicated hosting plans. |
| SOC 2 | Listed on the pricing plan comparison as 'Coming soon'; the Free and Pro columns show '-' for SOC 2. | SOC 2 Type II audited against the Security trust service criterion by Insight Assurance; report available on request through the Trust Center form. |
| GDPR / data residency | Region choice covers residency: a database can be provisioned in eu-central-1 (Frankfurt), which Nile presents as easing EU data-residency rules. From Nile's 2024-04-10 regions announcement; the live API region enum still lists AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1. | GDPR DPA published with EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Module Two) for EEA transfers; ScaleGrid itself is located in the United States. |
| Encryption at rest | Stated for Nile Auth: all communication is encrypted using TLS and all stored data is encrypted at rest. Read in the Nile Auth FAQ; Nile publishes no platform-wide security page. | Optional encryption at rest for data and backups; when enabled, backups are encrypted and can only be mounted on the database machines. |
| Dedicated infrastructure | Provisioned compute is dedicated to a single Nile customer; tenants can be placed on either serverless or provisioned compute. The pricing page separately marks Provisioned Compute 'Coming soon' (upto 4 VCPU on Pro). | Dedicated Hosting plans run on dedicated virtual machines hosted by ScaleGrid, exclusive to a single client or business. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Nile: Yes — Ongoing $0 Free plan: 50M query tokens, 1 GB storage, 500 connections, no pauses. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: No ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))

### Kind of free offer

- Nile: Free tier ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: Free trial ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))

### Entry paid plan

- Nile: $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: Dedicated Hosting starts at $10/month for Redis; $13/month PostgreSQL, $18/month MongoDB, $23/month MySQL, all-inclusive of machine, disk and network costs. From the Dedicated Hosting Plans doc; the live /pricing/ calculator quotes higher figures (see notes). ([source](https://help.scalegrid.io/docs/getting-started-dedicated-hosting-plans))

### Pricing model

- Nile: Priced on queries rather than instances, with a $15 base for Pro. Nile's own framing is "Pay for queries, not for instances", and additional tokens are $0.05 per million. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: Two models: Dedicated Hosting, an all-inclusive plan covering machine, disk and network cost; or Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC), management-only pricing where the cloud provider is billed separately. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))

### Storage (entry plan)

- Nile: 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: 18 GB storage on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 1 GB RAM); IOPS listed as N/A. Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing/?db=POSTGRESQL&cloud=cloud_digital_ocean&instance=Nano#section_pricing_dedicated))

### Memory (entry plan)

- Nile: No memory figure published: serverless compute is billed in query tokens, abstract units of CPU and memory, 50 million included on the Free plan. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: 1 GB RAM on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 18 GB storage). Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing/?db=POSTGRESQL&cloud=cloud_digital_ocean&instance=Nano#section_pricing_dedicated))

### Regions

- Nile: Two regions selectable for a new database: AWS_US_WEST_2 (AWS US West, Oregon) and AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1 (AWS Europe, Frankfurt). The separate list-available-regions endpoint enumerates a third value, AZURE_EASTUS. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/docs/api-reference/databases/create-a-database))
- ScaleGrid: Six cloud providers: AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, DigitalOcean, Oracle Cloud (OCI) and Akamai. Specific regional availability is not published on the pricing or product pages. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/mysql.html))

### Engine

- Nile: PostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ and SQL Server. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))

### Connection limit

- Nile: 10,000 connections on Pro, with connection pooling included. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: No platform cap published: max_connections (maximum permitted simultaneous client connections) is listed as a customer-editable MySQL server parameter in the ScaleGrid console. ([source](https://help.scalegrid.io/docs/mysql-configuration-settings))

### When idle

- Nile: No cold start on Pro — Nile lists it as a plan feature rather than a behaviour to configure. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: Manual pause/resume on Bring Your Own Cloud clusters: a paused cluster's nodes are stopped and its cloud VM costs stop, but ScaleGrid management costs continue and the data is unreachable until resumed. Only standard clusters using persistent storage; high-performance local-SSD clusters cannot be paused. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/blog/new-feature-byoc-pausing-resuming-cluster/))

### Database branching

- Nile: Not supported — Pricing marks Branching 'Coming soon': one branch Free, 50 Pro, unlimited Scale. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: Limited — Clone copies a backup's config and contents into a new, separately billed cluster, not an in-place branch. ([source](https://help.scalegrid.io/docs/postgresql-backups-clone))

### Backup retention

- Nile: Three backups taken daily; restore is request-based through support and available on paid tiers only. No retention window is published. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/docs/support/backup_restore))
- ScaleGrid: Up to five backups per deployment on ScaleGrid's dedicated hosting plans. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))

### SOC 2

- Nile: Listed on the pricing plan comparison as 'Coming soon'; the Free and Pro columns show '-' for SOC 2. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- ScaleGrid: SOC 2 Type II audited against the Security trust service criterion by Insight Assurance; report available on request through the Trust Center form. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/soc-2-compliance-page/))

### GDPR / data residency

- Nile: Region choice covers residency: a database can be provisioned in eu-central-1 (Frankfurt), which Nile presents as easing EU data-residency rules. From Nile's 2024-04-10 regions announcement; the live API region enum still lists AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/blog/2024-04-10-saas-anywhere))
- ScaleGrid: GDPR DPA published with EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Module Two) for EEA transfers; ScaleGrid itself is located in the United States. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/dpa/))

### Encryption at rest

- Nile: Stated for Nile Auth: all communication is encrypted using TLS and all stored data is encrypted at rest. Read in the Nile Auth FAQ; Nile publishes no platform-wide security page. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/docs/auth/help/faq))
- ScaleGrid: Optional encryption at rest for data and backups; when enabled, backups are encrypted and can only be mounted on the database machines. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/dpa/))

### Dedicated infrastructure

- Nile: Provisioned compute is dedicated to a single Nile customer; tenants can be placed on either serverless or provisioned compute. The pricing page separately marks Provisioned Compute 'Coming soon' (upto 4 VCPU on Pro). ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/docs/getting-started/architecture))
- ScaleGrid: Dedicated Hosting plans run on dedicated virtual machines hosted by ScaleGrid, exclusive to a single client or business. ([source](https://help.scalegrid.io/docs/getting-started-dedicated-hosting-plans))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Nile if Multi-tenant SaaS where every customer wants isolation — Nile makes a database per tenant the default shape rather than something you build on top of Postgres.

Pick ScaleGrid if Teams that already have a favored database engine and cloud provider but want someone else operating it — the BYOC model bills infrastructure at cost and adds management on top, worth it if the operational burden is the actual problem.

Consider something else: Nile — Several of the features on its own pricing table are marked Coming soon, including branching, backups and provisioned compute, so what is bought today is narrower than the table suggests.

Consider something else: ScaleGrid — The workload fits a single-engine specialist with its own scale-to-zero or branching model — ScaleGrid's value is operating an engine you already chose, not offering a distinctive one.

## Documented by only one

- What the free plan includes: ScaleGrid: A full week of access with no credit card. There is no ongoing free plan.
- Credit card to start: ScaleGrid: No
- When the free offer ends: ScaleGrid: 7 days.
- Startup credit program: ScaleGrid: Startup Saver: up to 50% discount on ScaleGrid hosting for 12 months.
- Point-in-time recovery: ScaleGrid: PostgreSQL PITR: backups every 10 minutes by default, transaction logs retained 7 days; supported on Azure, DigitalOcean, EC2 and OCI only.
- Read replicas: ScaleGrid: Supported — Converting a standalone deployment to a replica set: 2 + 1 quorum or 3 nodes, in datacenter regions you pick.
- Rewind in place: ScaleGrid: Not supported — PITR restores via Peek at Backup or Clone into a brand new cluster; the source deployment is not rewound.
- HIPAA: ScaleGrid: HIPAA compliance listed under Support for ScaleGrid Enterprise (on-premises / private cloud) deployments. Stated for the Enterprise plan only; the SOC 2 trust page does not mention HIPAA.
- PCI DSS: ScaleGrid: PCI compliance listed under Support for ScaleGrid Enterprise (on-premises / private cloud) deployments. Stated for the Enterprise plan only; no PCI DSS attestation or level is published.
- Customer-managed keys: ScaleGrid: Bring Your Own Encryption Key lets customers control the OS encryption key used for their deployments, announced in the March 2026 platform updates. Listed under Other Relevant Updates in the platform's March 2026 product-update summary.
- Role-based access control: ScaleGrid: Role-Based Access Control in the ScaleGrid console: roles and permissions can be assigned to the users on a team account.
- Private networking / VPC: ScaleGrid: Bring Your Own Cloud plans can use VPCs (AWS VPC, GCP VPC, OCI VCN, Azure VNET) and Security Groups; Dedicated Hosting plans cannot.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Nile or ScaleGrid?**

Nile: $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month.
ScaleGrid: Dedicated Hosting starts at $10/month for Redis; $13/month PostgreSQL, $18/month MongoDB, $23/month MySQL, all-inclusive of machine, disk and network costs. From the Dedicated Hosting Plans doc; the live /pricing/ calculator quotes higher figures (see notes).

**Free tier: Nile or ScaleGrid?**

Nile: Yes — Ongoing $0 Free plan: 50M query tokens, 1 GB storage, 500 connections, no pauses.
ScaleGrid: No

**Storage (entry plan): Nile or ScaleGrid?**

Nile: 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB.
ScaleGrid: 18 GB storage on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 1 GB RAM); IOPS listed as N/A. Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path.

**Should I choose Nile or ScaleGrid?**

Pick Nile if Multi-tenant SaaS where every customer wants isolation — Nile makes a database per tenant the default shape rather than something you build on top of Postgres.
Pick ScaleGrid if Teams that already have a favored database engine and cloud provider but want someone else operating it — the BYOC model bills infrastructure at cost and adds management on top, worth it if the operational burden is the actual problem.