Turso vs Convex

At a Glance

Turso

Convex

Turso

Pros

Pricing is genuinely cheap — the free tier includes 9GB storage and 500 databases which covers most indie projects indefinitely+141
Edge replication puts a read replica close to every user without any configuration, which makes global apps feel instant+128
SQLite is so simple that onboarding a new developer takes minutes — there's no server to configure or connection string to debug+103
The embedded replica feature lets you run the database in-process for zero-latency reads in serverless environments+87
Drizzle ORM integration is first-class and the setup docs are the best in the SQLite ecosystem right now+76

Database

Neon vs PlanetScale vs Turso

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Cons

SQLite's limited ALTER TABLE support means schema migrations are more awkward than with Postgres — you often have to recreate tables+118
Write latency goes to the primary region, so users far from your primary location will see slower write performance than reads+94
Multi-tenant setups with hundreds of databases sound great in theory but managing that many separate databases adds operational complexity+83
The ecosystem is still young and you'll hit undocumented edge cases that require digging through GitHub issues to resolve+71

Convex

Pros

The reactive query system means your UI automatically updates when data changes without writing any WebSocket or polling code+154
TypeScript end-to-end from database schema to frontend hooks — no API layer to define, no types to duplicate+142
The local development experience with hot reload is the fastest iteration loop I've found for full-stack TypeScript+127
Mutations run as transactions by default, which means you get ACID guarantees without thinking about it+118
Built-in scheduling for background jobs means you don't need a separate queue service for async work+98

Cons

Heavy vendor lock-in — the data model and query language are proprietary and migrating away would require a full rewrite+167
Free tier limits are easy to hit in production with a modest user base and the paid jump is steep for early-stage apps+139
The reactivity model is powerful but adds mental complexity — reasoning about what triggers a re-render requires learning new patterns+103
Not a good fit if you need complex SQL-style analytics or reporting — the document model makes aggregations verbose+88