Pick Gel if
app teams who will stay on Cloud Free at $0 / month (1/4 compute unit, 1 GB disk) while they open a first instance dashboard, then buy Pro at $19.50 / month when they need 1 GiB RAM, 10 GiB storage, and email support.
Read the Gel pageGel vs SurrealDB
Our take
Pick Gel if app teams who will stay on Cloud Free at $0 / month (1/4 compute unit, 1 GB disk) while they open a first instance dashboard, then buy Pro at $19.50 / month when they need 1 GiB RAM, 10 GiB storage, and email support. Pick SurrealDB if app teams who will stay on Cloud Start at $0/hour (first instance, 1 GB storage, daily backups) while they open a first Instances list, then add a burstable small at
SurrealDB
multi-model database desk
Best for
Gel A schema-plus-query instance you start at $0
SurrealDB An instance you start at $0
Free plan
Gel $0 · / month. 1/4 compute unit (1/2 GiB RAM, 1/16 vCPU). Up to 1 GB disk. Encryption at rest. Community support
SurrealDB $0 · /hour (Free · 0.25 vCPU · 1 GB). 1 GB storage free forever. Further instances from $0.021/hour. Daily automated backups. Vertical scale. Cloud RBAC/ABAC
Lowest paid
Gel Pro $19.50
SurrealDB Scale $0.192
Next step up
Gel
SurrealDB Start storage $0.239
Coding agent
Gel
SurrealDB Self-host / Cloud
Runs where
Gel Hosted
SurrealDB Hosted
Watch out
Gel Free is 1/4 compute unit and 1 GB disk
SurrealDB $0 is the first Start instance only
Last checked
Gel 2026-10-23 · geldata.com/pricing
SurrealDB 2026-10-23 · surrealdb.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick SurrealDB if
app teams who will stay on Cloud Start at $0/hour (first instance, 1 GB storage, daily backups) while they open a first Instances list, then add a burstable small at $0.021/hour ($15.33/month if it ran 730 hours) when they need a second instance or more CPU.
Read the SurrealDB page