Nile vs ScaleGrid
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Nile and ScaleGrid built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
16 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Nile 0
ScaleGrid 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Nile | ScaleGrid |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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. |
| Limits | ||
| 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. |
| Execution | ||
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported — PgBouncer for PostgreSQL, enabled at cluster creation or later, with pooling mode and pool size set by you. |
| Infrastructure | ||
| 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. |
| Data | ||
| 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. |
| Compliance | ||
| 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.
- ScaleGrid
- No
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing | Nile Database ↗
“For prototyping or side projects. No pauses, always available [...] This enables us to provide unlimited DBs for free tier”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
- ScaleGrid Pricing ↗
“Dive in for free Explore free for a full week-no credit card, no hassle.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
Kind of free offer
- Nile
- Free tier
- ScaleGrid
- Free trial
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing | Nile Database ↗
“For prototyping or side projects. No pauses, always available [...] This enables us to provide unlimited DBs for free tier”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
- ScaleGrid Pricing ↗
“Dive in for free Explore free for a full week-no credit card, no hassle.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
Entry paid plan
- 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).
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“Pro For launching production workloads. With production SLA $ 15 / month [...] Scale For scale, more security and global presence $ 350 / month”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Dedicated Hosting Plans: ScaleGrid for PostgreSQL, Redis, MySQL, and MongoDB — ScaleGrid Docs ↗
“Dedicated Hosting pricing starts at $18/month for MongoDB®, $10/month for Redis™, $23/month for MySQL, and $13/month for PostgreSQL.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“Pay for queries Not for instances [...] 0.05 per million additional tokens Storage 5 GB $1.00 per additional GB”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- ScaleGrid Pricing ↗
“Dedicated Hosting: All-inclusive plans covering machine, disk, and network costs. Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC): Management-only pricing; you pay cloud provider separately.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
Storage (entry plan)
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“Storage 5 GB $1.00 per additional GB SLA 99.95%”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Database Hosting Pricing - Choose Your Plan | ScaleGrid ↗
“CORE (S) RAM (GB) STORAGE (GB) MONTHLY PRICE (USD) [...] NANO 1 1 18 IOPS: N/A”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing | Nile Database ↗
“Query tokens are abstract units of CPU and memory used when queries are executed on the serverless compute. [...] The exact CPU and memory utilized by a query are abstracted, and users only need to care about query tokens [...] Serverless compute 50 million query tokens”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
- Database Hosting Pricing - Choose Your Plan | ScaleGrid ↗
“CORE (S) RAM (GB) STORAGE (GB) MONTHLY PRICE (USD) [...] NANO 1 1 18 IOPS: N/A”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Nile API reference - Create a database ↗
“The region where the database will be hosted. Nile currently supports the following values: AWS_US_WEST_2 - AWS in US West (Oregon) AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1 - AWS in Europe (Frankfurt)”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- ScaleGrid MySQL Hosting ↗
“AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, DigitalOcean, Oracle Cloud (OCI), Akamai.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official site
Engine
- Nile
- PostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited.
- ScaleGrid
- MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ and SQL Server.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“multi-tenant applications with Nile's Postgres Unlimited Databases Unlimited Tenants Pay for queries Not for instances Limitless vector embeddings”
Read 2026-09-06 · official site
- ScaleGrid Pricing ↗
“MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, SQL Server.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
Connection limit
- Nile
- 10,000 connections on Pro, with connection pooling included.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“# of connections 10,000 Connection pooling”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- MySQL Configuration Settings — ScaleGrid Docs ↗
“max_connections Maximum permitted number of simultaneous client connections. Yes”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
When idle
- Nile
- No cold start on Pro — Nile lists it as a plan feature rather than a behaviour to configure.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“Connection pooling Workspace sharing No cold start Provisioned Compute Coming soon”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- New Feature for BYOC - Pausing and Resuming Clusters ↗
“you will be able to pause a running cluster, putting it in a “Paused” state. The “Paused” state means that all cluster nodes are in a stopped state. While a cluster is “Paused” you will no longer get charged for your cloud provider’s VM costs [...] you will still get charged for the ScaleGrid management cost [...] This feature is only available on standard clusters using persistent storage”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
Database branching
- Nile
- Not supported — Pricing marks Branching 'Coming soon': one branch Free, 50 Pro, unlimited Scale.
- ScaleGrid
- Limited — Clone copies a backup's config and contents into a new, separately billed cluster, not an in-place branch.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing | Nile Database ↗
“Branching Coming soon One branch [...] Branching Coming soon 50 branches”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
- PostgreSQL Backup Clone ↗
“you can use the PostgreSQL Clone feature. This allows you to carry over the configuration of that backup along with all its contents to a new cluster. [...] Clone creates a new cluster with the same config and backup contents that you can connect to and examine the data. [...] Standard pricing rules apply for this newly created deployment”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
Backup retention
- Nile
- Three backups taken daily; restore is request-based through support and available on paid tiers only. No retention window is published.
- ScaleGrid
- Up to five backups per deployment on ScaleGrid's dedicated hosting plans.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Backup and Restore ↗
“This is available for paid tiers only. We hope to make this process self-serve soon. [...] We take three backups daily to ensure your data is well-protected.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- ScaleGrid Pricing ↗
“ScaleGrid offers up to five backups per deployment on ScaleGrid's dedicated hosting plans.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
SOC 2
- Nile
- Listed on the pricing plan comparison as 'Coming soon'; the Free and Pro columns show '-' for SOC 2.
- ScaleGrid
- SOC 2 Type II audited against the Security trust service criterion by Insight Assurance; report available on request through the Trust Center form.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing | Nile Database ↗
“1 week Global placement Coming soon 2 regions SOC 2 Coming soon [...] SOC 2 Coming soon - Auth Number of active users”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing
- ScaleGrid SOC 2 Type II Audited Controls ↗
“ScaleGrid’s SOC 2 Type II audit focused on the Security trust service criterion and evaluated the effectiveness of our Security controls and operational practices over time. The audit was conducted by independent audit firm Insight Assurance. [...] Customers and prospective customers may request access to ScaleGrid’s SOC 2 Type II report and supporting security documentation through the request form on this page.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
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.
- ScaleGrid
- GDPR DPA published with EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Module Two) for EEA transfers; ScaleGrid itself is located in the United States.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Introducing: SaaS Anywhere on Postgres - for Speed and Compliance ↗
“We started with us-west-2 (Oregon) and you now have the option to also provision a database in eu-central-1 (Frankfurt). [...] There are many regions with strict data residency regulations: EU, UK, parts of Canada, Japan, Australia [...] Having databases in the relevant regions make this a lot simpler and safer.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
- Data Processing Addendum (DPA) | ScaleGrid ↗
“ScaleGrid is located in the United States and to the extent any processing of Personal Data of Data Subjects located in the EEA by ScaleGrid takes place in any country outside the EEA (other than exclusively in an Adequate Country), there must be a lawful basis for this transfer as required by the Data Protection Legislation.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
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.
- ScaleGrid
- Optional encryption at rest for data and backups; when enabled, backups are encrypted and can only be mounted on the database machines.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Nile Auth FAQ - Security ↗
“Nile Auth uses industry standard security best practices. All communication is encrypted using TLS, all stored data is encrypted at rest.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Data Processing Addendum (DPA) | ScaleGrid — Annex B: Security Measures ↗
“Encryption at rest options are provided to encrypt your data and backups [...] If Encryption at rest is enabled the backups are also encrypted and can only be mounted on the database machines”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site
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).
- ScaleGrid
- Dedicated Hosting plans run on dedicated virtual machines hosted by ScaleGrid, exclusive to a single client or business.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Architecture of Nile Postgres ↗
“Serverless compute is built with true multitenancy, while provisioned compute is dedicated to a single Nile customer. [...] Tenants can be placed on either serverless or provisioned compute.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
- Dedicated Hosting Plans: ScaleGrid for PostgreSQL, Redis, MySQL, and MongoDB — ScaleGrid Docs ↗
“Dedicated Hosting is a hosting solution that provides a dedicated server(s) exclusive to a single client or business. [...] All Dedicated Hosting plans are hosted on your own dedicated virtual machines hosted by ScaleGrid.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
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.