Dragonfly Cloud: pricing, free tier and alternatives (2026)

§1

Overview

Dragonfly is an in-memory data store built as a faster, more memory-efficient replacement for Redis. It uses a shared-nothing, thread-per-core design, so one instance can use all the cores on a large machine, and it speaks the Redis (RESP2 and RESP3) and Memcached protocols. Dragonfly Cloud is the managed service from the team that builds it, running on AWS, Google Cloud or Azure.

Billing is by provisioned memory rather than by requests. The Flex plan starts at about $36/mo for a 3 GB development instance; beyond that you pay per GB per month depending on compute tier and region, plus the cloud's data transfer charges. A single-shard data store scales vertically to about 600 GB; Dragonfly Swarm shards automatically up to 15 TB and needs Redis Cluster clients. Business ($2,000/mo and up) adds bring-your-own-cloud, autoscaling, SSO and custom SLAs.

Data stores can be public (TLS and passkey on by default) or on private networks with VPC peering, and can run with replicas in several zones for high availability. Backups are manual or scheduled with your own retention, and Redis RDB files can be imported to migrate. Note that cloud region and cluster mode cannot be changed after a data store is created.

§2

Pricing and plans

Plan	Price	What you get
Flex	From $36/mo	Self-serve on AWS, GCP or Azure; horizontal and vertical scaling; monitoring; Dragonfly team support
Business	From $2,000/mo	Bring your own cloud, autoscaling, SSO and MFA, custom SLA, dedicated support
Enterprise	Custom	Run anywhere including air-gapped, custom instance types, migrations, enterprise SLA

Data stores are billed per prorated hour by provisioned memory (including replicas), compute tier (Standard, Enhanced with 2x CPU, Extreme with 4x CPU) and region. The pricing calculator showed $8.00/GB/month on-demand for its default selection, and the docs example uses $11/GB/month for the Enhanced tier in AWS us-east-1. Cloud-provider data transfer fees are passed through at public rates, and backup storage costs $0.10/GB/month. Flex offers a free trial and Business a free proof of concept, but their length is not stated on the pages read; there is no permanent free tier. The regions list is not published on the pages read; the vendor says you pick a region on each cloud, and Business can run in your own cloud account. The Dragonfly engine can be self-hosted; its licence terms were not stated on the pages read. No compliance certifications are listed on the pages read.

Source: www.dragonflydb.io/pricing · prices as published, excluding tax.

§3

What it does

Redis and Memcached compatibility: Existing Redis, Valkey and Memcached clients and commands work; you repoint the connection string.
Multi-threaded engine: Thread-per-core design uses all CPU cores, so fewer, larger nodes can replace a Redis cluster.
Dragonfly Swarm: Managed multi-shard mode that scales to 15 TB in memory with read replicas enabled by default.
Compute tiers: Standard, Enhanced (2x CPU per GB) and Extreme (4x CPU per GB) to match CPU-heavy workloads.
Backups and RDB import: Manual and scheduled backups with set retention, plus import of Redis RDB files over HTTPS.
Private networking: Private networks and peering connections to avoid public traffic and cut transfer costs.

§4

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

Drop-in replacement for Redis and Memcached with no code changes
Priced by memory, not requests, which suits high-throughput caches
Runs on all three major clouds, with bring-your-own-cloud on Business
Configuration changes with near-zero downtime
Support directly from the engine's developers

Limitations

No permanent free tier; the smallest instance is about $36/mo
Cloud provider data transfer fees are billed on top
Cloud region and cluster mode cannot be changed after creation
Swarm backups restore only to a data store with the same shard count, and Swarm needs Redis Cluster clients
SSO and bring-your-own-cloud start at $2,000/mo

§5

Who it suits

Good for

Replacing ElastiCache or Redis Cloud for large, busy caches
Feature stores and session stores with high request rates
Queues built on BullMQ or Sidekiq that need more throughput

Look elsewhere if

Hobby projects that need a free Redis
Very small caches where a per-request serverless Redis is cheaper

§6

Alternatives to Dragonfly Cloud

Tool	From	Free option
Aiven Managed open-source data platform (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, Valkey, OpenSearch, ClickHouse)	$5/mo	Free tier
Clever Cloud European managed PaaS	€6/mo	Trial
Convex Reactive backend and document database	$25/mo	Free tier
Crunchy Bridge Managed PostgreSQL on AWS, Azure and GCP	$9/mo	Paid
Firebase Backend platform with document and realtime databases	Usage-based	Free tier
Google Cloud SQL Managed PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQL Server	$0.011/hr	Trial

All managed databases →

§7

Questions

Is Dragonfly compatible with Redis?

Yes. Dragonfly Cloud supports the Redis RESP2 and RESP3 protocols and Memcached, so existing clients and libraries work unchanged.

How much does Dragonfly Cloud cost?

Flex starts at about $36/mo for a 3 GB development instance, then is billed per provisioned GB by compute tier and region. Business starts at $2,000/mo.

Does Dragonfly Cloud have a free tier?

No permanent free tier. Flex offers a free trial and Business a free proof of concept.

How large can a Dragonfly Cloud data store get?

A single-shard data store scales to about 600 GB; Dragonfly Swarm scales to 15 TB, and larger needs go through support.

Which clouds does Dragonfly Cloud run on?

AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, with bring-your-own-cloud and on-prem options on higher plans.

Sources read for this page