# Nile vs Turso

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Nile | Turso |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Entry paid plan | $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month. | $4.99/month for Developer, the cheapest paid plan. Scaler is $24.92 and Pro $416.58. |
| 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. | Per database, metered on rows rather than compute time: 500 million rows read and 10 million written a month on the free plan, 2.5 billion and 25 million on Developer, with overage at $1 per billion rows read and $1 per million written. |
| Storage (entry plan) | 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB. | 9 GB on Developer, then $0.75 per GB. The free plan includes 5 GB; Scaler is 24 GB at $0.50 and Pro 50 GB at $0.45. |
| Engine | PostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited. | SQLite, via libSQL — Turso's own fork. Not Postgres or MySQL, so the query surface and the client libraries differ from every other database on this site. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Nile: $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- Turso: $4.99/month for Developer, the cheapest paid plan. Scaler is $24.92 and Pro $416.58. ([source](https://turso.tech/pricing))

### 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))
- Turso: Per database, metered on rows rather than compute time: 500 million rows read and 10 million written a month on the free plan, 2.5 billion and 25 million on Developer, with overage at $1 per billion rows read and $1 per million written. ([source](https://turso.tech/pricing))

### Storage (entry plan)

- Nile: 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB. ([source](https://www.thenile.dev/pricing))
- Turso: 9 GB on Developer, then $0.75 per GB. The free plan includes 5 GB; Scaler is 24 GB at $0.50 and Pro 50 GB at $0.45. ([source](https://turso.tech/pricing))

### 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))
- Turso: SQLite, via libSQL — Turso's own fork. Not Postgres or MySQL, so the query surface and the client libraries differ from every other database on this site. ([source](https://turso.tech/pricing))

## 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 Turso if Applications that want a database per tenant or per user — 100 databases on the free plan and unlimited above it make that a shape you can actually build.

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: Turso — It is SQLite, not Postgres: the metered units are rows read and written rather than compute, and the extension ecosystem you may be relying on is not there.

## Documented by only one

- Free tier: Turso: Yes
- Managed connection pooling: Nile: Supported
- Connection limit: Nile: 10,000 connections on Pro, with connection pooling included.
- When idle: Nile: No cold start on Pro — Nile lists it as a plan feature rather than a behaviour to configure.
- Database branching: Turso: Supported
- Point-in-time recovery: Turso: 10 days on Developer. 1 day on the free plan, 30 days on Scaler and 90 days on Pro.

## Questions this comparison answers

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

Nile: $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month.
Turso: $4.99/month for Developer, the cheapest paid plan. Scaler is $24.92 and Pro $416.58.

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

Nile: 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB.
Turso: 9 GB on Developer, then $0.75 per GB. The free plan includes 5 GB; Scaler is 24 GB at $0.50 and Pro 50 GB at $0.45.

**Should I choose Nile or Turso?**

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 Turso if Applications that want a database per tenant or per user — 100 databases on the free plan and unlimited above it make that a shape you can actually build.