Appwrite vs Paddle
Open-source BaaS for building full-stack apps
vs. Merchant of Record for SaaS — global tax, billing, checkout in one
Pricing tiers
Appwrite
Self-Hosted
Run Appwrite on your own infrastructure. MIT licensed — no usage limits.
$0 base (usage-based)
Cloud Free
Managed cloud. Hard caps: 1 team member, 1 database per project.
Free
Cloud Pro
From $15/member/month. 2 TB bandwidth, 150 GB storage, 200k MAU, 3.5M executions, unlimited databases + team members.
$15/mo
Cloud Scale
$599/month flat for the org. Higher included usage + advanced security. Deprecated in some regions — check.
$599/mo
Enterprise
Custom pricing. SOC 2, HIPAA (on request), dedicated infra, SLAs.
Custom
Paddle
Pay-as-you-go
5% + 50¢ per Checkout transaction. No monthly fee. All-inclusive (tax, fraud, support).
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom rates for high-volume. Dedicated success. Custom migration + implementation.
Custom
Invoicing (<$10 products)
Custom pricing for invoicing / products under $10.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Appwrite vs payg on Paddle.
| Metric | Appwrite | Paddle |
|---|---|---|
| bandwidth gb month | 5 GB/month | — |
| databases per project | 1 databases | — |
| function duration s | 30 seconds | — |
| function executions | 750000 exec/month | — |
| mau | 75000 users/month | — |
| storage gb | 2 GB | — |
| team members | 1 members | — |
Features
Appwrite · 13 features
- Account (Auth) — User authentication: email/password, magic URLs, phone OTP, anonymous, 30+ OAuth…
- Avatars — Generated avatars, country flags, credit-card icons, QR codes, favicons.
- Databases — NoSQL collections with attribute types, indexes, permissions per document/collec…
- Events System — Unified event bus: subscribe in Functions, Webhooks, Realtime using event string…
- Functions — Serverless functions in 13+ runtimes (Node, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Dart, Deno, S…
- Messaging — Multi-channel messaging: Push (FCM/APNs), SMS (Twilio/Vonage/Msg91), Email (Mail…
- Migrations — Import from Firebase, Supabase, NHost, or another Appwrite project.
- Permissions (ACLs) — Per-document / per-collection ACLs: Role.user(), Role.team(), Role.any(), Role.g…
- Realtime — WebSocket subscriptions to events: database changes, auth, storage, function exe…
- Sites — Deploy static and SSR frameworks (Next, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro, Remix) direct fr…
- Storage — File buckets with access control, auto-transforms (image preview), antivirus, en…
- Teams — Group users with shared access + roles. Used for row-level permissions on resour…
- Webhooks — HTTP callbacks on any Appwrite event. Signed with x-appwrite-webhook-signature.
Paddle · 12 features
- Affiliates (Rewardful partnership) — Affiliate tracking (via partner).
- Customer Portal — Self-service subscription management.
- Fraud Protection — ML + human review. Paddle absorbs chargebacks.
- Global Tax Compliance — Automatic VAT/GST/sales tax calc + remittance + filing.
- One-time Sales — Perpetual license sales, single purchases.
- Paddle Checkout — Hosted or overlay checkout. Localized + fraud-protected.
- Paddle Retain — Revenue recovery + cancel flows (acquired Retain).
- ProfitWell Analytics — Included subscription analytics (acquired ProfitWell).
- Self-Serve Invoices — B2B invoicing with custom POs.
- Smart Dunning — Retry logic + email sequences for failed payments.
- Subscriptions — Full lifecycle: trials, changes, cancellations, recovery.
- Webhooks — Standard resource events with HMAC signing.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Appwrite | Paddle |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Appwrite CLI | — |
| SDK | Android SDK (Kotlin), Apple SDK (Swift), Dart Server SDK, Deno SDK, Flutter SDK, Kotlin Server SDK, .NET Server SDK, Node.js Server SDK, PHP Server SDK, Python Server SDK, React Native SDK, Ruby Server SDK, Swift Server SDK, Web SDK (browser) | Paddle.js, @paddle/paddle-node-sdk, paddle-python |
| REST | REST API | Paddle Billing API |
| GRAPHQL | GraphQL API | — |
| MCP | Appwrite MCP Server | — |
| OTHER | Realtime WebSocket | Paddle Checkout, Paddle Webhooks |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Appwrite and Paddle are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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