This page answers the frequently asked questions about CockroachCloud Free (beta). For answers to frequently asked questions about the paid version of CockroachCloud, see CockroachCloud FAQs.
General
What is CockroachCloud Free (beta)?
CockroachCloud Free (beta) delivers free CockroachDB clusters for you and your organization. It is a managed instance of CockroachDB that removes the friction of initial cluster sizing and auto-scales based on your application traffic.
What are the usage limits of Cockroach Cloud Free (beta)?
There is an upper limit of usage of up to 1 vCPU and 5GB storage per free cluster. If you hit the storage limit, you will receive an email asking you to delete enough data to stay under the 5GB limit. If you do not respond within the next 30 days, you will be blocked from accessing your cluster.
Do I have to pay for CockroachCloud Free (beta)?
No, you do not have to pay anything. CockroachCloud Free (beta) is free forever.
What can I use CockroachCloud Free (beta) for?
CockroachCloud Free (beta) can be used for proofs-of-concept, toy programs, or to use while completing Cockroach University.
For examples of applications that use CockroachCloud Free (beta), check out the following Hack the North projects:
What are the limitations of CockroachCloud Free (beta)?
CockroachCloud Free is currently in beta and there are capabilities we are still working on enabling, such as the ability to enable backups, to import data, and no-downtime upgrades to a paid tier. If you want to use any of these capabilities, try a 30-day trial of CockroachCloud.
How do I connect to my cluster?
To connect to a cluster, download the CA certificate, and then generate a connection string or parameters. You can use this information to connect to your cluster through the CockroachDB SQL client or a Postgres-compatible driver or ORM. For more details, see Connect to Your CockroachCloud Cluster.
Beta release
Why is CockroachCloud Free in beta?
CockroachCloud Free is in beta while we work on adding core features like import and backups.
Where can I submit feedback or bugs on the beta?
You can submit feedback or log any bugs you find through this survey.
Security
Is my cluster secure?
Yes, we use separate certificate authorities for each cluster, and all connections to the cluster over the internet use TLS 1.2.
Is encryption-at-rest enabled on CockroachCloud Free (beta)?
Yes. All data on CockroachCloud is encrypted-at-rest using the tools provided by the cloud provider that your cluster is running in.
- Data stored in clusters running in GCP are encrypted-at-rest using persistent disk encryption.
- Data stored in clusters running in AWS are encrypted-at-rest using EBS encryption-at-rest.
Because we are relying on the cloud provider's encryption implementation (as noted above), we do not enable CockroachDB's internal implementation of encryption-at-rest. This means that encryption will appear to be disabled in the DB Console, since it is unaware of cloud provider encryption.
Is my cluster isolated? Does it share resources with any other clusters?
CockroachCloud Free (beta) is a multi-tenant offering and resources are shared between clusters.
Cluster maintenance
How do I add nodes?
You cannot add nodes to your CockroachCloud Free (beta) cluster, and there is an upper limit of usage of up to 1 vCPU and 5GB storage. If you exceed this limit or want a more powerful cluster, you can create a cluster using the paid version of CockroachCloud.
Can I upgrade my cluster from CockroachCloud Free (beta) to the paid version of CockroachCloud?
At this time, a CockroachCloud Free (beta) cluster cannot be upgraded. In the future, you will have the ability to move from CockroachCloud Free (beta) to a paid version of CockroachCloud.
Product features
Are partitioning or change data capture available to me?
No, change data capture and partitioning are not available on CockroachCloud Free (beta) clusters, but will be in the future.
Do you have a UI? How can I see details?
Yes, you can view and your clusters in the CockroachCloud Console. However, DB Console pages (e.g., Statements or Database pages) are not currently available for CockroachCloud Free (beta) clusters.
Can I backup my CockroachCloud Free (beta) cluster? Does Cockroach Labs take backups of my cluster?
Cockroach Labs takes full cluster backups of all CockroachCloud Free (beta) clusters for our own purposes. Currently, these backups are not available to you and you cannot backup and restore a CockroachCloud Free (beta) cluster yourself. We expect to support user-initiated backup and restore of free clusters in the future.
In the meantime, you can run a SELECT statement using the --format=csv flag to print the output into a file. For example:
$ cockroach sql -e 'SELECT * FROM test_database.table1' --format=csv --url='postgres://username:password@free-tier...' > users.txt
For an example on how to use this output to migrate to a paid CockroachCloud cluster, see Migrate from a CockroachCloud Free (beta) to CockroachCloud Cluster.
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