Solanica vs Aiven
Self-Hosted Database Control Plane vs Managed Cloud Service
Both Solanica and Aiven help teams run production databases without reinventing operational tooling. The fundamental difference: Aiven runs your databases on their cloud infrastructure. Solanica runs everything on your Kubernetes clusters — your cloud account, your on-prem nodes, your network perimeter.
- Runs on your existing Kubernetes clusters
- Data never leaves your infrastructure
- Apache 2.0 licensed control plane
- Multi-cloud, on-prem, and air-gapped support
- Databases run in Aiven's cloud infrastructure
- Zero operational overhead to get started
- Pay Aiven per node-hour on top of cloud costs
- No on-prem or air-gapped deployment option
Feature Comparison
A factual comparison across the dimensions that matter most for production database infrastructure. Where Aiven has a genuine advantage, we say so.
| Feature / Dimension | ● Solanica + OpenEverest | ● Aiven |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure & Data Location | ||
| Where your database runs | ✓ Your Kubernetes cluster — your cloud account, your on-prem nodes, your VPC | ◦ Aiven's cloud infrastructure (AWS / GCP / Azure / DigitalOcean nodes provisioned by Aiven) |
| Data sovereignty | ✓ Data never leaves your network perimeter. No third-party access to data at rest or in transit | ◦ Data resides in Aiven's managed infrastructure. Aiven has operational access to host nodes |
| On-prem / bare metal | ✓ Fully supported — runs on any K8s: EKS, GKE, AKS, RKE2, K3s, or bare metal | ✗ Not available. Aiven runs exclusively on cloud providers |
| Air-gapped / disconnected environments | ✓ Supported — no egress to external endpoints required for normal operations | ✗ Requires connectivity to Aiven's control plane |
| Pricing & Cost | ||
| Pricing model | ✓ Pay only for the Kubernetes compute you already own or provision. No per-node Solanica markup | ◦ Per-node-hour pricing: cloud compute cost + Aiven service margin. Cost scales with every node added |
| Typical cost at scale (20+ nodes) | ✓ 40–60% lower total cost vs equivalent Aiven configuration at scale | ◦ Competitive at small scale; premium grows proportionally as node count increases |
| Network egress costs | ✓ Zero cross-cloud egress — database and application run in the same cluster/VPC | ◦ Application-to-database traffic crosses cloud provider network if app runs outside Aiven's cloud account |
| Platform & Openness | ||
| Control plane license | ✓ OpenEverest core and all bundled operators: Apache 2.0. Plugin API is open — anyone can build operators. Solanica's platform adds some proprietary plugins for certain engines (e.g. MSSQL) | ◦ Database engines are open source; Aiven's platform, control plane, and billing layer are proprietary SaaS with no self-host option |
| Multi-database from one control plane | ✓ MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB today. Modular architecture with a public roadmap: ClickHouse, Valkey, MSSQL, Oracle, LLM hosting | ✓ Broad catalog available today: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, Kafka, ClickHouse, OpenSearch, Flink, and more |
| Kubernetes-native deployment model | ✓ CRD-first, GitOps-compatible, Helm-installable. Databases are K8s resources by design | ◦ Aiven Kubernetes Operator exists for managing Aiven cloud services via CRDs, but databases still run on Aiven nodes |
| Security & Compliance | ||
| Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) encryption | ✓ You control encryption keys — integrate with Vault, AWS KMS, or native K8s Secrets. Available to all tiers | ◦ BYOK available on Enterprise tier only at additional cost |
| Compliance (HIPAA, FedRAMP, GDPR) | ✓ Data residency is inherently controlled — you choose the jurisdiction and hardware. Compliance audit scope stays within your own infrastructure | ◦ Aiven holds compliance certifications (SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR). Audits include Aiven's infrastructure as a shared responsibility |
| Operations & Support | ||
| Operational overhead | ◦ Low — operator automates provisioning, HA, backups, upgrades. Requires existing K8s competency | ✓ Very low — Aiven manages the full stack including hardware, OS, and database. Best for teams without K8s expertise |
| Support model | ✓ Direct Slack channel with OpenEverest engineers via Design Partner Program. NRE for custom integrations | ◦ Tiered support plans (email / priority / enterprise). Response SLAs vary by plan |
What Makes the Difference
The comparison table covers the feature checklist. This section covers why those differences matter operationally — especially at scale and in regulated environments.
Data Sovereignty
When you use Aiven, your database files physically reside on virtual machines in Aiven's cloud accounts. Aiven employees — and by extension Aiven's cloud provider — have infrastructure-level access to those nodes. This is fine for many use cases, but it creates a hard blocker for:
Solanica runs entirely within your Kubernetes cluster. Database pods, PVCs, and backup jobs execute inside your VPC / network perimeter. Solanica's control plane never touches your data — it only communicates with the Kubernetes API server you expose to it. Your DBA team retains full kubectl exec access. Audit logs stay in your SIEM.
Total Cost of Ownership
Aiven's pricing model layers a service margin on top of cloud provider costs. For a small number of nodes this is competitive — you're paying for zero operational overhead. As your fleet grows, the per-node premium compounds.
The crossover point varies by team. Teams with >10 database nodes and existing K8s operations typically see 40–60% lower total cost with Solanica.
Who Owns the Lifecycle
Aiven's model is: they own the infrastructure, you consume the endpoint. This is powerful for small teams — there is genuinely nothing to manage. The tradeoff is that you lose control over configuration depth, backup targets, and diagnostics when you need it most.
Open Source vs Proprietary Platform
Both Solanica and Aiven use open-source database engines (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB). The difference is the platform layer above the engine.
- OpenEverest core: Apache 2.0
- Percona Operators: Apache 2.0
- CloudNativePG: Apache 2.0
- PBM / pgBackRest: Apache 2.0
- Plugin API: open — build your own operator or plugin
- Roadmap: ClickHouse · Valkey · MSSQL · Oracle · LLMs
OpenEverest's modular architecture means the community can build operators and plugins for any database. Solanica's platform includes some proprietary plugins for certain engines (e.g. the MSSQL plugin) — the core is always open-source, but not every Solanica capability is.
- Database engines: open source ✓
- Aiven platform: proprietary
- Billing / provisioning API: proprietary
- Connection routing layer: proprietary
- No self-host option
If Aiven changes pricing, discontinues a service, or goes offline, migration requires reprovisioning all infrastructure under your own management.
When to Choose Each Platform
There's no universal answer. Aiven is genuinely the right choice for certain teams and use cases. Solanica is the right choice for others. Here is our honest take.
Choose Aiven when…
Aiven requires no infrastructure knowledge to get started. If your team is focused on product development and containerised infrastructure isn't yet in your stack, starting with Aiven is a perfectly reasonable choice. Many teams begin on managed services and migrate to a self-hosted control plane once scale or compliance requirements make the investment worthwhile — and that transition path is well-documented.
When your engineering team is <10 people and operational velocity is the constraint, Aiven's zero-ops model frees engineers to focus on product. The cost premium is justified by the time saved. Revisit the decision when your database fleet exceeds 10–15 nodes.
Aiven's breadth spans data pipeline services well beyond relational databases. If you need a single vendor for Kafka, ClickHouse, Flink, and Redis alongside your PostgreSQL, Aiven's unified platform is compelling today. OpenEverest's modular architecture has a roadmap that includes ClickHouse, Valkey, MSSQL, Oracle, and LLM hosting — but if you need any of those in production right now, Aiven's catalog has the advantage.
If your application has no data residency requirements, no air-gap requirements, and no internal policy against third-party cloud data handling, Aiven's SaaS model has no disqualifying limitation.
Choose Solanica when…
Healthcare (HIPAA), financial services (FCA, MAS TRM), government (FedRAMP), and heavily-regulated SaaS companies routinely have requirements that preclude running databases on third-party infrastructure. Solanica is designed for this constraint as a first principle, not an afterthought.
If you already run workloads on K8s, adding Solanica to manage stateful workloads means no new infrastructure to provision. Your existing compute, monitoring, RBAC, and GitOps workflows extend directly to your databases. The operational investment is marginal.
Teams migrating from Aiven, RDS, or Atlas to Solanica typically do so when the per-node premium at scale becomes significant — usually beyond 10–15 database nodes. If your monthly database bill is growing faster than your dataset, the TCO analysis favours a self-hosted control plane.
Edge environments, sovereign clouds, on-prem data centres, or fully disconnected environments are not options with Aiven. Solanica runs on any Kubernetes — including RKE2 in your data centre, K3s at the edge, or a combination of multiple clouds you own.
OpenEverest's core and all bundled operators are Apache 2.0 — anyone can inspect, modify, and run them independently. Solanica's platform adds operational UX and some proprietary plugins for certain engines, but the underlying data path is always open-source. Even without a Solanica subscription, your databases keep running on the open stack underneath.
Aiven supports logical dumps via pg_dump, mongodump, and mysqldump. For large datasets, Aiven provides external service integration for logical replication to a self-hosted target. Our team has helped several teams migrate from Aiven — the standard path is: provision Solanica target, continuous replication during cutover window, DNS switch, decomission Aiven service. Book a migration planning call →
Move from Aiven to Solanica
Stop paying the cloud markup. Run your databases on infrastructure you own, in environments you control — with the same operational comfort as a managed service.
