Convex vs DynamoDB for Solo Developers

Both Convex and DynamoDB are document-style databases with serverless pricing models, but the developer experience could not be more different. One is built for developers who want to move fast with minimal config. The other is built for AWS shops that need infinite scale and are willing to learn its quirks.

Having used both on real projects, I can tell you the choice comes down to how much time you want to spend on data modeling versus building features.

Convex Overview

Convex is a backend platform that gives you a document database, server functions, and real-time subscriptions as a single integrated service. You write everything in TypeScript. Your schema, queries, mutations, and server logic all live in one place and deploy together.

The standout feature for solo developers is how little setup is required. There is no IAM configuration, no capacity planning, no read/write unit calculations. You write a function, deploy it, and call it from your frontend. Data changes propagate to all connected clients automatically.

The free quota covers 1M function calls per month, 0.5 GB of database storage, and 1 GB of file storage. The Starter plan keeps that free allowance and bills overages as you go (around $2.20 per extra million calls), so you scale to zero when nobody is using the app. The Professional plan is $25 per developer per month and lifts the included amounts to 25M calls, 50 GB database, and 100 GB file storage.

DynamoDB Overview

DynamoDB is Amazon's fully managed NoSQL database service. It stores data in tables with a partition key and optional sort key, and it scales to handle virtually any workload. It has been in production at Amazon scale for over a decade.

The trade-off is complexity. DynamoDB requires careful upfront data modeling. You need to design your access patterns before you write your first query, because the key structure determines what queries are efficient. Single-table design, GSIs, LSIs, and capacity modes all need consideration.

DynamoDB has a generous always-free tier through AWS. You get 25 GB of storage plus 25 write capacity units and 25 read capacity units that never expire, though that throughput allowance only applies to provisioned capacity mode, not on-demand. The on-demand model charges per request, and after the November 2024 price cut it runs $0.625 per million writes and $0.125 per million reads in US East (N. Virginia), which can be very cheap at low scale.

Comparison Table

When to Pick Convex

Choose Convex when you want to minimize the distance between writing code and having a working product. If you are a solo developer building a SaaS app, a collaborative tool, or a real-time dashboard, Convex eliminates the need for a separate API layer, a separate database service, and a separate real-time system.

The learning curve is dramatically lower than DynamoDB. You do not need to think about partition keys, capacity units, or access pattern optimization. You write a query function, add an index if needed, and move on.

Convex is also the better choice if you are not already invested in the AWS ecosystem. DynamoDB makes the most sense when it is part of a broader AWS architecture. On its own, it is a lot of complexity for a solo developer.

When to Pick DynamoDB

Choose DynamoDB if you are already building on AWS and want your database to integrate natively with Lambda, API Gateway, S3, and the rest of the ecosystem. The tight integration with AWS services means you can build event-driven architectures with DynamoDB Streams triggering Lambda functions, which is powerful for background processing.

DynamoDB also makes sense if you expect your app to hit massive scale. It handles billions of requests per day without breaking a sweat. If you are building something where you know traffic could spike unpredictably, DynamoDB's on-demand mode scales automatically with no capacity management.

The permanent free tier is attractive for cost-conscious solo developers. If your app stays within the free tier limits, you pay nothing indefinitely. That is hard to beat for a side project that might not generate revenue for months.

By the Numbers (2026)

Specs and prices change, so here is what each side actually looks like as of late May 2026.

Convex

• Latest client release is the convex npm package v1.39.1, published May 15, 2026, under the Apache-2.0 license.
• The open-source convex-backend repository carries 11,736 GitHub stars and is written primarily in TypeScript, with commits landing the same week I checked.
• The convex npm package pulled 731,105 downloads in the last week and roughly 2.92M in the last month, so adoption is healthy and growing.
• Free quota: 1M function calls per month, 0.5 GB database storage, 1 GB file storage, 20 GB-hours of action compute, and 1 to 6 developers per team.
• Starter plan: $0 base with pay-as-you-go overages (about $2.20 per extra 1M calls, $0.22 per extra GB of database storage).
• Professional plan: $25 per developer per month for 25M calls, 50 GB database, 100 GB file storage, and up to 20 developers.
• Documents are capped at 1 MiB each, and the free S16 deployment class allows 1,000 concurrent sessions.

DynamoDB

• The primary client is the AWS SDK. @aws-sdk/client-dynamodb is at v3.1056.0 and pulls about 7.09M weekly npm downloads, with boto3 (the Python SDK) at v1.43.17.
• Always-free tier: 25 GB of storage, 25 write capacity units, and 25 read capacity units that never expire, applied to provisioned capacity mode only.
• On-demand rates in US East (N. Virginia): $0.625 per million write request units, $0.125 per million read request units, and $0.25 per GB-month of standard-class storage.
• Items are capped at 400 KB each, which is smaller than Convex's 1 MiB document ceiling.
• Real-time change capture runs through DynamoDB Streams, and multi-region replication runs through global tables, both of which you wire up yourself rather than getting them by default.

Real Cost at Solo-Dev Scale

Numbers in isolation do not help you decide, so let me cost out a realistic small SaaS month and compare. Assume a side project with 1,000 active users that drives 3M reads and 1M writes per month, stores 5 GB of data, and (on the Convex side) maps roughly to 4M function calls including subscription updates and scheduled jobs.

DynamoDB on-demand, US East (N. Virginia):

• Reads: 3M reads at $0.125 per million is $0.375.
• Writes: 1M writes at $0.625 per million is $0.625.
• Storage: 5 GB at $0.25 per GB-month is $1.25, but the first 25 GB is free, so this is $0.
• Estimated total: about $1.00 per month, before data transfer and any GSIs you add.

DynamoDB stays nearly free at this scale because the per-request rates are tiny and the storage sits inside the always-free 25 GB. The catch is that the dollar cost is the easy part. You still pay in design time getting the partition keys and access patterns right, and a single mismodeled global secondary index can quietly multiply that bill.

Convex Starter (pay as you go):

• 4M function calls: 1M is included free, the remaining 3M at $2.20 per million is about $6.60.
• 5 GB database storage: 0.5 GB included, the remaining 4.5 GB at $0.22 per GB is about $0.99.
• Estimated total: roughly $7.60 per month at this workload, scaling to zero in months with no traffic.

So at this exact scale DynamoDB is cheaper on paper, on the order of a dollar versus seven or eight. The honest framing is that both bills are rounding errors for a real side project, and the seven dollar gap buys you a complete reactive backend with no API layer, no capacity planning, and no access-pattern modeling. If your time is worth more than seven dollars a month, that math usually favors Convex until you are at serious scale, at which point DynamoDB's per-request pricing pulls ahead hard.

Verdict

For most solo developers in 2025, Convex is the more productive choice. You get a complete backend with real-time sync, type safety, and minimal configuration. The developer experience is miles ahead of DynamoDB for rapid development.

DynamoDB is the right call when you are committed to AWS, need virtually unlimited scale, or want to take advantage of the permanent free tier for a project with unpredictable timelines. Just be prepared to invest time learning its data modeling patterns, because getting those wrong is painful to fix later.

Ship fast with Convex. Scale infinitely with DynamoDB. Pick the constraint that matters less to you right now.

Sources

All figures checked on 2026-05-28.

• Convex pricing and plan limits: https://www.convex.dev/pricing
• Convex Starter plan announcement: https://news.convex.dev/introducing-the-new-convex-starter-plan-pay-for-only-what-you-need/
• Convex documented limits (function calls, storage, 1 MiB document cap, S16 class): https://docs.convex.dev/production/state/limits
• Convex npm version and downloads (registry and downloads API): https://registry.npmjs.org/convex/latest and https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-week/convex
• Convex open-source backend (stars, language): https://github.com/get-convex/convex-backend
• DynamoDB on-demand pricing (per-request rates, storage): https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/pricing/on-demand/
• DynamoDB pricing overview and free tier: https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/pricing/
• DynamoDB Streams (real-time change capture): https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/Streams.html
• DynamoDB global tables (multi-region replication): https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/GlobalTables.html