Question 1

What is the main difference between RisingWave and Materialize?

Accepted Answer

RisingWave is an Apache 2.0 licensed, cloud-native streaming database with distributed architecture, S3-based storage, and 50+ native connectors. Materialize uses a BSL license with a Timely Dataflow engine. Both are PostgreSQL-compatible and built in Rust, but differ in licensing, deployment flexibility, and ecosystem breadth.

Question 2

Is RisingWave open source?

Accepted Answer

Yes. RisingWave is fully open source under the Apache 2.0 license, allowing unrestricted use, modification, and distribution. You can self-host RisingWave with full functionality using a single binary, or use RisingWave Cloud as a managed service.

Question 3

Can I migrate from Materialize to RisingWave?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Both RisingWave and Materialize are PostgreSQL-compatible and support standard SQL for creating materialized views. Most SQL definitions can be migrated directly. Differences exist in backfill handling, sink semantics, and some SQL extensions, so testing is recommended before production migration.

Question 4

How does RisingWave handle CDC transaction atomicity?

Accepted Answer

RisingWave processes CDC transactions atomically by default. The transactional mode pauses internal barriers when a transaction begins and buffers all events until the commit is received, ensuring downstream materialized views never observe partial transaction states.

Question 5

Does RisingWave support Apache Iceberg?

Accepted Answer

Yes. RisingWave natively integrates with Apache Iceberg for streaming lakehouse workloads. It supports both Merge-on-Read and Copy-on-Write modes, built-in compaction, snapshot management via VACUUM, and REST catalog hosting — enabling unified streaming and batch analytics.

Question 6

Which has better connector support?

Accepted Answer

RisingWave offers 50+ native source and sink connectors, including Kafka, Pulsar, Kinesis, CDC for PostgreSQL/MySQL/MongoDB/SQL Server, Apache Iceberg, Snowflake, BigQuery, ClickHouse, Redis, and more. Materialize requires Debezium and Kafka Connect for non-native sources, adding operational complexity.

Question 7

How does RisingWave pricing compare to Materialize?

Accepted Answer

RisingWave Cloud starts at $0.227 per RWU per hour with usage-based billing. Materialize uses credit-based pricing at $1.50 per credit, with clusters ranging up to $144 per hour. RisingWave's S3-based architecture typically results in lower storage costs compared to Materialize's memory-intensive state management.

Question 8

Does RisingWave support vector search and AI workloads?

Accepted Answer

Yes. RisingWave supports the vector(n) data type for storing high-dimensional embeddings, HNSW indexes for fast similarity search, and the openai_embedding() SQL function for generating embeddings directly in the database. This enables real-time AI applications like semantic search and recommendation engines.

	RisingWave	Materialize
License	Apache 2.0 (true open source)	BSL 1.1 (source-available, converts to Apache 2.0 after 4 years)
Architecture	Cloud-native, distributed, decoupled compute-storage	Built on Timely Dataflow, distributed in cloud edition
Storage	S3-compatible object storage with elastic disk cache	S3 for persistence, memory for index-based serving
Programming interface	PostgreSQL-compatible SQL + UDFs (Python, Java, Rust, JS)	PostgreSQL-compatible SQL
Native CDC sources	PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, SQL Server — built-in	PostgreSQL, MySQL — non-native sources require Debezium + Kafka Connect
Connector ecosystem	50+ native source and sink connectors	Fewer native connectors; external tools needed for many sources
Apache Iceberg	Native integration with MoR, CoW, compaction, REST catalog	Not supported
Vector search / AI	vector(n) type, HNSW index, openai_embedding() function	Not supported
Window functions	Full support for standard SQL window functions	Limited — recomputes entire window partition on each update
CDC transaction atomicity	Atomic by default (transactional mode with barrier pausing)	Atomic
Consistency	Exactly-once semantics with consistent snapshot reads	Strict serializable (default)
Failure recovery	Seconds (state persisted in S3)	Depends on arrangement rebuild time
Self-hosted deployment	Single binary or Kubernetes; full functionality	Requires Kubernetes + PostgreSQL metadata + blob storage + license key
Cloud regions	Multiple AWS regions, multi-cloud support	AWS only (us-east-1, us-west-2, eu-west-1)
Pricing model	Usage-based (from $0.227/RWU/hour)	Credit-based ($1.50/credit, up to $144/hour per cluster)
GitHub stars	8,800+	6,200+

RisingWave vs Materialize: Which Streaming Database Should You Choose?

Why do teams choose RisingWave over Materialize?

How does RisingWave compare to Materialize?

Frequently Asked Questions