Couchbase Capella is Couchbase's fully managed NoSQL DBaaS. Compare 2026 pricing tiers, features, pros, cons and FAQs for this cloud database platform.
Researched and fact-checked by Bartu Cavusoglu · Updated July 19, 2026
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Couchbase Capella is Couchbase's fully managed Database-as-a-Service offering, built on the company's distributed NoSQL database engine that combines key-value performance with SQL-like querying over JSON documents. Rather than self-hosting and operating Couchbase Server clusters, teams provision managed clusters through Capella on AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.
Couchbase, Inc. traces back to a February 2011 merger of Membase (originally NorthScale, founded 2009) and CouchOne. The managed cloud product launched as Couchbase Cloud in 2020, was rebranded Capella in late 2021, and expanded across all three major public clouds by early 2023. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, and was acquired by Haveli Investments in September 2025.
Capella bundles multiple data services on top of its core document database: SQL++ for SQL-compatible querying of JSON data, key-value access for low-latency lookups, full-text and vector search for building semantic and AI-driven search and retrieval features, an analytics service for reporting workloads isolated from transactional traffic, an eventing service for real-time reactions to data changes, and Mobile App Services for syncing data to edge and mobile clients with offline support.
Clusters support role-based access control scoped to specific data scopes and collections, and, starting at the Basic paid tier, cross data center replication (XDCR) for multi-region resilience, along with scheduled backups whose frequency increases at higher tiers.
Capella uses a consumption-based, credit-driven pricing model rather than flat monthly plans. A Free tier offers a single 8GB node with community support for prototyping at no cost, while paid usage is billed per node-hour, converted into tier-specific credits: roughly 1.00 USD per Basic credit, 1.25 USD per Developer Pro credit, and 1.75 USD per Enterprise credit.
Node-hour starting rates are approximately 0.15 USD (Basic), 0.35 USD (Developer Pro), and 0.49 USD (Enterprise), with higher tiers requiring larger minimum cluster sizes and adding features like more frequent backups, higher uptime SLAs, customer-managed encryption keys, and premium support response times. Actual costs scale with node count, node size, cloud region, and workload.
Couchbase Capella is the fully managed Database-as-a-Service version of Couchbase's NoSQL database, available on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, bundling key-value, document, search, analytics, eventing, and mobile sync services.
Capella uses consumption-based, credit-driven pricing billed per node-hour, with a free tier plus Basic, Developer Pro, and Enterprise tiers starting at approximately 0.15, 0.35, and 0.49 USD per node-hour respectively.
Yes, Capella offers a Free tier limited to a single node with 8GB capacity, sample data, and community forum support, suitable for prototyping rather than production.
Yes, Capella includes native full-text and vector search capabilities that support semantic search and retrieval-augmented generation patterns for AI applications.
Capella is available as a managed service on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Couchbase, Inc. was formed in February 2011 through the merger of Membase and CouchOne; the company was acquired by Haveli Investments in September 2025 in a deal valued at roughly 1.5 billion US dollars.
Multi-node clusters on the Basic tier carry a 99.5 percent uptime SLA, while Developer Pro and Enterprise tiers offer up to a 99.99 percent uptime SLA.
Yes, cross data center replication (XDCR) is available starting at the Basic paid tier for multi-region deployments.