6 Serverless databases to consider in your next project

Serverless databases have become a game-changer in today's fast-paced digital economy. They provide agility, scalability, and cost-efficiency to the codebase. Traditional relational databases still have their uses, even though serverless databases present an intriguing alternative for companies and developers hoping to escape the limitations of infrastructure provisioning and maintenance.

In this blog, let's explore the top 6 serverless databases you can use in your next project.

Cockroachdb 

CockroachDB is the most evolved cloud-based SQL database. It is a distributed, open-source, and cloud-native database system fully elastic and resilient data infrastructure distributed worldwide to help developers build applications instantly at a low cost. In many ways, it looks like a single Postgres instance. All the resources are measured in Request Units (RUs), representing the compute used by a query.

It is designed to provide high availability, scalability, and strong consistency for modern applications. It achieves these goals through features such as automatic data replication across multiple nodes to ensure fault tolerance, support for distributed transactions and SQL for data integrity, linear scalability by adding nodes to the cluster, and geo-partitioning for global data distribution, making it suitable for building resilient and scalable applications in dynamic, multi-cloud environments.

CockroachDB provides the following features:

1. Automatic Data Replication: CockroachDB automatically replicates data across multiple nodes to ensure high availability and fault tolerance.
2. Distributed Transactions: It supports distributed transactions with ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties, ensuring data integrity in a distributed environment.
3. Linear Scalability: The database scales horizontally by simply adding more nodes, accommodating growing workloads without compromising performance.
4. Geo-Partitioning: CockroachDB enables data to be distributed globally, allowing for efficient data access and low-latency responses across geographically distributed clusters.
5. Cloud-Native Architecture: It is designed to work seamlessly in cloud environments, making it well-suited for modern, containerized, and microservices-based applications.

PlanetScale DB

PlanetScale is a MySQL cloud-native database platform designed to simplify and scale database operations for modern apps. It is enterprise-ready PlanetScaleDB is a MySQL-compatible serverless database platform powered by Vitess. It is the developer-first database that requires no query planning cluster size or scaling or any other database-related details in advance. It is compatible with all major frameworks and languages. 

PlantScale provides the following features:

1. Vitess Compatibility: PlanetScale is built on top of the open-source Vitess project, offering seamless compatibility and scalability for MySQL workloads.
2. Multi-Cloud Deployment: It supports deployment across multiple cloud providers, enhancing flexibility and resilience.
3. Global Distribution: PlanetScale enables data distribution across regions and availability zones for low-latency access and disaster recovery.
4. Automated Scaling: It offers automated horizontal scaling to handle growing workloads without manual intervention.
5. Schema Management: PlanetScale simplifies schema changes and migrations, reducing operational complexity.

Neon DB

NeonDB is a distributed, serverless, and scalable database service provided by Neon. It is designed to handle real-time applications and is built on a decentralized infrastructure using blockchain technology. NeonDB aims to provide high performance, reliability, and security for data storage and retrieval. It offers features like automatic sharding, data replication, and built-in encryption to ensure data integrity and privacy. NeonDB also supports smart contracts and allows developers to build decentralized applications (dApps) on top of its infrastructure.

Amazon Aurora

Amazon Aurora is one of the databases provided under Amazon AWS. It is a PostgreSQL and MySQL-based relational database built for the cloud, and Amazon Aurora Serverless is an important configuration for Amazon Aurora. With security, performance, instant availability, and reliability, AWS Aurora Serverless enables you to create a database endpoint immediately in the desired capacity range and connect your applications. You can run your database in the cloud without any hassle of managing data capacity. 

Here are some features that make Amazon Aurora a unique MySQL serverless database:

1. High Performance: Amazon Aurora provides exceptional database performance with low-latency read and write operations. It's designed to deliver up to five times the throughput of standard MySQL databases and up to twice the throughput of standard PostgreSQL databases, making it ideal for high-traffic applications.
2. Multi-AZ Deployment: Aurora offers automatic failover and high availability through Multi-Availability Zone (Multi-AZ) deployments. Data is replicated across multiple availability zones, ensuring minimal downtime in the event of a hardware failure or other disruptions.
3. Aurora Global Database: This feature enables cross-region replication for read scalability and disaster recovery. You can create up to 16 read replicas in different AWS regions, allowing you to serve read traffic from geographically distributed locations and ensuring data durability.
4. Serverless Aurora: Amazon Aurora Serverless automatically adjusts database capacity based on actual usage, eliminating the need for manual capacity management. This feature is cost-effective for applications with variable workloads, as you only pay for the resources you use.
5. Aurora Backtrack: Aurora Backtrack allows you to rewind your database to a specific point in time, helping you recover from unintended data changes or errors without the need for complex data restoration processes. This feature simplifies data recovery and reduces downtime.

Amazon DynamoDB

A fully managed, key-value NoSQL serverless database service offered by Amazon Web Service (AWS), Amazon DynamoDB requires minimal setup and maintenance to handle massive workloads. DynamoDB is proprietary to AWS, whereas Dynamo is a storage system developed by Amazon. 

There are several NoSQL serverless platforms available today. But here are some unique features DynamoDB provides:

1. Fully Managed and Serverless: AWS takes care of operational tasks like hardware provisioning, setup, and scaling. Additionally, it offers a serverless mode where you pay only for the resources you consume, making it a cost-effective choice for variable workloads.
2. Scalability: DynamoDB is designed for seamless horizontal scalability. It can handle massive workloads and automatically scales up or down to accommodate traffic spikes or reductions.
3. Global Tables: DynamoDB Global Tables provide built-in, multi-region replication for high availability and disaster recovery. You can deploy your data to multiple AWS regions, ensuring low-latency access for users worldwide and maintaining data consistency across regions.
4. On-Demand Backup and Restore: DynamoDB offers on-demand backup and restore capabilities, allowing you to create full backups of your data at any time. You can easily restore your table to any specific point in time within the backup retention period, ensuring data durability and recovery.
5. Auto Scaling: DynamoDB's Auto Scaling feature automatically adjusts the read and write capacity based on the actual usage of your database. This ensures that your application can handle varying workloads without manual intervention and optimizes cost by automatically scaling down during periods of lower activity.

Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database service provided by Microsoft Azure. It's designed to provide high availability, low-latency access, and scalability for a wide range of data types and use cases. Azure Cosmos DB offers several unique features and capabilities:

1. Global Distribution: Cosmos DB allows you to replicate your data across multiple Azure regions, enabling low-latency access for users around the world. You can select the regions where you want your data to be replicated, ensuring data availability and disaster recovery.
2. Multi-Model Support: Cosmos DB is a multi-model database, which means it supports multiple data models, including document, key-value, graph, and column-family. You can use the most suitable data model for your specific application without the need for separate databases.
3. Automatic Scaling: Cosmos DB can automatically scale both throughput and storage based on your application's needs. It can handle massive workloads without manual intervention, making it suitable for applications with unpredictable or fluctuating traffic.
4. Low-Latency Queries: With its globally distributed architecture and tunable consistency levels, Cosmos DB provides low-latency access to data. You can choose from different consistency models to balance data freshness and query performance.

🔥 Check Azure Cosmos DB

Google Firestore

Google Firestore comes under Firebase. It is a compre­hensive platform used for developing mobile and web applications. Its wide range of tools and services assists devel­opers in effic­iently building and managing high-q­uality applic­ations.

Firestore is a NoSQL database platform that is designed to store and sync data for web, mobile, and server applications in real time. Firestore is often used as a backend database for applications that require real-time updates and collaboration features, such as chat apps, collaborative tools, and mobile apps.

Thanks to being under the hood of Firebase, Firestore provides tons of features.

1. Real-Time Data Synchronization: Firestore offers real-time data synchronization out of the box, allowing multiple clients to listen for changes to the same data in real time. This feature is especially useful for building collaborative or interactive applications.
2. Multi-Region Data Replication: Firestore supports multi-region data replication, which means your data can be stored in multiple geographic locations, ensuring low-latency access for users worldwide and high availability in the event of regional outages.
3. Offline Support: Firestore provides robust offline support for mobile and web applications. Clients can read and write data even when they are offline, and changes are automatically synchronized when they regain connectivity, ensuring a seamless user experience.