Category · 5 options
Choosing counters and cache
A fast key-value store for vote counts, scores, leaderboards, streaks, rate limits and caching hot reads under traffic spikes. Counters and leaderboards need atomic increments and sorted sets, which is Redis. A read-mostly cache can sit in an edge key-value store, but check its per-key write limit and how long a write takes to show everywhere.
Free plans and prices
In Cuely's default order for the general case. Your needs change the order; see below.
| Tool | Free plan | Paid from | At 1,000 users |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upstash Redis Redis counters, sorted sets and expiring keys over HTTP, so it works from serverless and edge functions. | Free: 250 MB of data, 500K commands a month, 10 GB of bandwidth a month, 1 database, up to 10,000 commands per second. | Pay as you go: $0.20 per 100K commands; storage $0.25 per GB after the first 1 GB; bandwidth free up to 200 GB a month, then $0.03/GB. Fixed 250 MB: $10/month with no per-command billing. | $0/month |
| Cloudflare Durable Objects Strongly consistent state and WebSockets in one place, next to your Workers. | On Workers Free (SQLite-backed objects only): 100,000 requests a day, 13,000 GB-s of duration a day, 5 million rows read and 100,000 rows written a day, 5 GB stored in total. Past any limit, further operations fail with an error until 00:00 UTC. | On Workers Paid ($5/month account minimum): 1M requests a month, then $0.15 per million; 400,000 GB-s, then $12.50 per million GB-s; 50M rows written, then $1.00 per million; 5 GB-month, then $0.20 per GB-month. | $0/month |
| Cloudflare Workers KV Cheap global reads for data that changes rarely, such as today's question or yesterday's final results. | Workers Free: 100,000 reads, 1,000 writes, 1,000 deletes and 1,000 lists a day, 1 GB stored. Past a limit, operations of that type fail until 00:00 UTC. | Workers Paid ($5/month minimum): 10M reads a month, then $0.50 per million; 1M writes, then $5.00 per million; 1 GB, then $0.50 per GB-month. | $0/month |
| Vercel Global Config (formerly Edge Config) Instant reads of small config from Vercel functions and middleware. | Hobby: 1 store of up to 1 MB, the first 100,000 reads and 100 writes a month. | On demand: $3 per million reads and $1 per 100 writes. | $0/month |
| Redis Cloud Full Redis from its maker, at a flat price per memory size. | Free: one 30 MB database on a shared cloud deployment, best-effort SLA. | Essentials: from $0.007/hour, about $5/month (250 MB to 100 GB). | $0/month |
Best pick by need
From the published scores Cuely ranks with. Only needs where one tool clearly leads.
- global low latency: Cloudflare Workers KV. Reads are served from Cloudflare's network close to every player.
- Next.js or React: Vercel Global Config (formerly Edge Config). Reads from Vercel functions and middleware typically complete in under a millisecond.
- realtime features: Cloudflare Durable Objects. The same object can hold players' WebSockets; with the Hibernation API idle connections aren't billed for duration, and incoming messages bill at 20:1.
- traffic comes in viral spikes: Upstash Redis. Pay as you go absorbs a spike at $0.20 per 100K commands, under a budget cap you set.
- votes, scores, leaderboards or streaks (many writes to the same numbers): Upstash Redis. Atomic INCR and HINCRBY for votes, sorted sets for leaderboards, expiring keys for streaks, up to 10,000 commands a second on every plan.
Head to head
- Cloudflare Durable Objects vs Upstash Redis
- Cloudflare Workers KV vs Upstash Redis
- Upstash Redis vs Vercel Global Config (formerly Edge Config)
- Redis Cloud vs Upstash Redis
- Cloudflare Durable Objects vs Cloudflare Workers KV
- Cloudflare Durable Objects vs Vercel Global Config (formerly Edge Config)
- Cloudflare Durable Objects vs Redis Cloud
- Cloudflare Workers KV vs Vercel Global Config (formerly Edge Config)
- Cloudflare Workers KV vs Redis Cloud
- Redis Cloud vs Vercel Global Config (formerly Edge Config)