# ScaleGrid vs TigerData

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | ScaleGrid | TigerData |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | No | Yes — Free services are in beta, us-east-1 only, and go read-only at the storage limit. |
| Kind of free offer | Free trial | Free tier |
| Entry paid plan | 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). | Compute starts at $30/month on Performance, billed hourly, with storage charged separately. Scale starts at $36/month. |
| Pricing model | 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. | Compute and storage are billed separately and hourly rather than as one plan price — compute from $30 a month, storage at $0.177 per GB-month, with the headline storage figure resting on an assumed 5x compression ratio. |
| Storage (entry plan) | 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. | Up to 16 TB per service on the Performance (entry) plan, billed on actual usage; 64 TB on Scale and Enterprise |
| Memory (entry 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. | Up to 32 GB per service on the Performance (entry) plan; 128 GB on Scale and 256 GB on Enterprise |
| Managed connection pooling | Supported — PgBouncer for PostgreSQL, enabled at cluster creation or later, with pooling mode and pool size set by you. | Supported — pgBouncer pooler added per service in Console, in session or transaction mode. |
| Regions | 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. | 13 AWS regions (US, Canada, Sao Paulo, Ireland, London, Frankfurt, Zurich, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo) and 4 Azure regions for Tiger Cloud services |
| Engine | MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ and SQL Server. | PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB, aimed at time-series, real-time analytics and events. A self-managed edition exists for on-prem and private cloud. |
| Connection limit | No platform cap published: max_connections (maximum permitted simultaneous client connections) is listed as a customer-editable MySQL server parameter in the ScaleGrid console. | max_connections settable 25-500 on services from 0.5 CPU / 2 GiB to 4 CPU / 16 GiB, and 25-2000 from 8 CPU / 32 GiB up; fixed at 25 on shared CPU |
| When idle | 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. | Billed while running: all active standard services are charged even when not in use, and unused ones must be paused or deleted manually |
| Database branching | Limited — Clone copies a backup's config and contents into a new, separately billed cluster, not an in-place branch. | Supported — Service forks, created at current state, last snapshot, or a timestamp in the plan recovery window. |
| Point-in-time recovery | PostgreSQL PITR: backups every 10 minutes by default, transaction logs retained 7 days; supported on Azure, DigitalOcean, EC2 and OCI only. | 3 days on Performance, with cross-region backups available for disaster recovery on higher tiers. |
| Read replicas | Supported — Converting a standalone deployment to a replica set: 2 + 1 quorum or 3 nodes, in datacenter regions you pick. | Supported |
| Backup retention | Up to five backups per deployment on ScaleGrid's dedicated hosting plans. | One full backup weekly plus daily incrementals, kept for the plan recovery period; Enterprise can set 14-180 days; cross-region copies always kept 14 days |
| Rewind in place | Not supported — PITR restores via Peek at Backup or Clone into a brand new cluster; the source deployment is not rewound. | Not supported — Recovery is to a PITR fork you point the app at; the original service stays untouched. |
| 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. | SOC 2 Type 2 compliant; the annual report is available to customers on the Scale or Enterprise pricing plans by support ticket. |
| HIPAA | 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. | The Tiger Cloud Enterprise plan is Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant. Enterprise plan only. |
| GDPR / data residency | GDPR DPA published with EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Module Two) for EEA transfers; ScaleGrid itself is located in the United States. | Complies with EU GDPR; all customer data is processed under Tiger Data's GDPR-compliant Data Processor Addendum, which applies to all customers. |
| Encryption at rest | Optional encryption at rest for data and backups; when enabled, backups are encrypted and can only be mounted on the database machines. | Both active databases and backups are encrypted at rest (and in transit) with the industry-standard AES-256 algorithm. |
| Role-based access control | Role-Based Access Control in the ScaleGrid console: roles and permissions can be assigned to the users on a team account. | Project-level role-based access with Owner, Admin, Developer and Viewer roles; database-level roles are managed separately per service. |
| Private networking / VPC | Bring Your Own Cloud plans can use VPCs (AWS VPC, GCP VPC, OCI VCN, Azure VNET) and Security Groups; Dedicated Hosting plans cannot. | VPC peering leaves no public internet access to the service; AWS PrivateLink private endpoints route traffic over the AWS network. |
| Dedicated infrastructure | Dedicated Hosting plans run on dedicated virtual machines hosted by ScaleGrid, exclusive to a single client or business. | Managed Service for TimescaleDB (TimescaleDB hosted with Aiven): each service virtual machine is dedicated to a single customer, never multi-tenanted. Read on the MST security docs; scope is MST, not the Tiger Cloud platform. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- ScaleGrid: No ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))
- TigerData: Yes — Free services are in beta, us-east-1 only, and go read-only at the storage limit. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/service-management))

### Kind of free offer

- ScaleGrid: Free trial ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))
- TigerData: Free tier ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/service-management))

### Entry paid plan

- 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))
- TigerData: Compute starts at $30/month on Performance, billed hourly, with storage charged separately. Scale starts at $36/month. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/pricing))

### Pricing model

- 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))
- TigerData: Compute and storage are billed separately and hourly rather than as one plan price — compute from $30 a month, storage at $0.177 per GB-month, with the headline storage figure resting on an assumed 5x compression ratio. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/pricing))

### Storage (entry plan)

- 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))
- TigerData: Up to 16 TB per service on the Performance (entry) plan, billed on actual usage; 64 TB on Scale and Enterprise ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/pricing-and-account-management))

### Memory (entry 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. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing/?db=POSTGRESQL&cloud=cloud_digital_ocean&instance=Nano#section_pricing_dedicated))
- TigerData: Up to 32 GB per service on the Performance (entry) plan; 128 GB on Scale and 256 GB on Enterprise ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/pricing-and-account-management))

### Regions

- 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))
- TigerData: 13 AWS regions (US, Canada, Sao Paulo, Ireland, London, Frankfurt, Zurich, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo) and 4 Azure regions for Tiger Cloud services ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/get-started/supported-regions))

### Engine

- ScaleGrid: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ and SQL Server. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))
- TigerData: PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB, aimed at time-series, real-time analytics and events. A self-managed edition exists for on-prem and private cloud. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/pricing))

### Connection limit

- 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))
- TigerData: max_connections settable 25-500 on services from 0.5 CPU / 2 GiB to 4 CPU / 16 GiB, and 25-2000 from 8 CPU / 32 GiB up; fixed at 25 on shared CPU ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/service-management/connection-pooling))

### When idle

- 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/))
- TigerData: Billed while running: all active standard services are charged even when not in use, and unused ones must be paused or deleted manually ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/pricing-and-account-management))

### Database branching

- 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))
- TigerData: Supported — Service forks, created at current state, last snapshot, or a timestamp in the plan recovery window. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/service-management/fork-services))

### 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. ([source](https://help.scalegrid.io/docs/postgresql-point-in-time-recovery))
- TigerData: 3 days on Performance, with cross-region backups available for disaster recovery on higher tiers. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/pricing))

### Backup retention

- ScaleGrid: Up to five backups per deployment on ScaleGrid's dedicated hosting plans. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/pricing.html))
- TigerData: One full backup weekly plus daily incrementals, kept for the plan recovery period; Enterprise can set 14-180 days; cross-region copies always kept 14 days ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/high-availability/backup-restore))

### 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. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/soc-2-compliance-page/))
- TigerData: SOC 2 Type 2 compliant; the annual report is available to customers on the Scale or Enterprise pricing plans by support ticket. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/security/overview))

### 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. ([source](https://scalegrid.io/enterprise/))
- TigerData: The Tiger Cloud Enterprise plan is Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant. Enterprise plan only. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/security/overview))

### GDPR / data residency

- 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/))
- TigerData: Complies with EU GDPR; all customer data is processed under Tiger Data's GDPR-compliant Data Processor Addendum, which applies to all customers. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/security/overview))

### Encryption at rest

- 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/))
- TigerData: Both active databases and backups are encrypted at rest (and in transit) with the industry-standard AES-256 algorithm. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/security/overview))

### 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. ([source](https://help.scalegrid.io/docs/account-team-accounts))
- TigerData: Project-level role-based access with Owner, Admin, Developer and Viewer roles; database-level roles are managed separately per service. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/security/members))

### 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. ([source](https://help.scalegrid.io/docs/getting-started-dedicated-hosting-plans))
- TigerData: VPC peering leaves no public internet access to the service; AWS PrivateLink private endpoints route traffic over the AWS network. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/tiger-cloud/tiger-cloud-aws/security/overview))

### Dedicated infrastructure

- 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))
- TigerData: Managed Service for TimescaleDB (TimescaleDB hosted with Aiven): each service virtual machine is dedicated to a single customer, never multi-tenanted. Read on the MST security docs; scope is MST, not the Tiger Cloud platform. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/docs/deploy/mst/security))

## Which should you choose?

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.

Pick TigerData if Time-series and analytics workloads that want to stay in Postgres — TimescaleDB's compression is the reason the storage line is affordable at volume.

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.

Consider something else: TigerData — The advertised storage price assumes 5x compression, so a workload that does not compress that well pays materially more than the figure suggests.

## 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.
- Storage price: TigerData: $0.177 per GB-month on Performance and $0.212 on Scale. TigerData notes the effective price assumes 5x compression, which is an average rather than a guarantee.
- 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.

## Questions this comparison answers

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

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).
TigerData: Compute starts at $30/month on Performance, billed hourly, with storage charged separately. Scale starts at $36/month.

**Free tier: ScaleGrid or TigerData?**

ScaleGrid: No
TigerData: Yes — Free services are in beta, us-east-1 only, and go read-only at the storage limit.

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

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.
TigerData: Up to 16 TB per service on the Performance (entry) plan, billed on actual usage; 64 TB on Scale and Enterprise

**Should I choose ScaleGrid or TigerData?**

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.
Pick TigerData if Time-series and analytics workloads that want to stay in Postgres — TimescaleDB's compression is the reason the storage line is affordable at volume.