Knock vs MongoDB Atlas
Notifications-as-a-service: in-app feeds, email, push, SMS, chat via one API
vs. Managed MongoDB with search, vector, stream processing
Pricing tiers
Knock
Developer
Free forever. 10K messages, 500 guide users, 500 AI credits/month.
$0 base (usage-based)
Starter
$250/mo. 50K messages, 2.5K guide users, 2K AI credits. Remove branding.
$250/mo
Enterprise
Custom pricing. White-label, i18n, data warehouse, Datadog, SCIM, SAML, HIPAA/BAA.
Custom
MongoDB Atlas
M0 — Free
Shared cluster, 512 MB storage, 100 ops/sec, 32 MB sort memory. Learning/exploration.
Free
Flex — Serverless
Autoscales 0-500 ops/sec. 5 GB storage. Pay-as-you-go, up to ~$30/mo.
$8/mo
M2 — Shared
Shared, 2 GB storage. Staging / small apps.
$9/mo
M5 — Shared
Shared, 5 GB storage.
$25/mo
M10 — Dedicated
2 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 10-128 GB storage. First dedicated tier.
$57/mo
M20 — Dedicated
4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 20-256 GB storage.
$144/mo
M30 — Dedicated
8 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 40-512 GB storage.
$389/mo
M40 — Dedicated
16 GB RAM, 4 vCPU, 80 GB-1 TB storage.
$749/mo
M50 — Dedicated
32 GB RAM, 8 vCPU, 160 GB-4 TB storage.
$1440/mo
M60 — Dedicated
64 GB RAM, 16 vCPU.
$2844/mo
M80 — Dedicated
128 GB RAM, 32 vCPU, 750 GB-4 TB.
$5256/mo
M300 — Dedicated
384 GB RAM, 96 vCPU.
$15732/mo
Enterprise
Multi-region Advanced, private network, BYOK, dedicated support.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing starter on Knock vs m0 on MongoDB Atlas.
| Metric | Knock | MongoDB Atlas |
|---|---|---|
| backups | — | 0 backups |
| guide users | 2500 users | — |
| guide users overage | $0.05/user USD/user | — |
| messages monthly | 50000 messages/mo | — |
| messages overage | $0.005/message USD/message | — |
| ops per sec | — | 100 ops/sec |
| sort memory mb | — | 32 MB |
| storage gb | — | 0.5 GB |
Features
Knock · 13 features
- AI Agents — Autonomous notification drafting & workflow generation.
- Batch + Digest — Group notifications into digests on schedule or window.
- Chat — Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord.
- Email — Send via SendGrid/Postmark/Resend/Mailgun/AWS SES as relays.
- Guides — In-product messaging, announcements, modals, banners.
- i18n / Localization — Translate templates by user locale.
- In-App Feed — Notification inbox with React/Vue/iOS/Android drop-in components.
- Multi-tenancy — Per-tenant branding, preferences, quiet hours.
- Outbound Webhooks — Subscribe to delivery events.
- Preferences — User + tenant preference center with granular controls.
- Push — iOS (APNs), Android (FCM), Expo, Web Push.
- SMS — Twilio, MessageBird, Telnyx, Vonage as providers.
- Workflows — Visual notification orchestration (branch, batch, delay, throttle).
MongoDB Atlas · 14 features
- Atlas App Services — Backend-as-a-service: Functions, HTTPS endpoints, users + auth, sync.
- Atlas Charts — Embedded dashboards + visualizations from Atlas data.
- Atlas Database — Core MongoDB with automated backups, monitoring, scaling on AWS/Azure/GCP.
- Atlas Data Federation — Query across Atlas, S3, and HTTP endpoints in one pipeline.
- Atlas Device Sync (Realm) — Offline-first mobile DB that syncs bidirectionally with Atlas.
- Atlas Search — Apache Lucene-based full-text search integrated into MongoDB aggregation pipelin…
- Atlas Stream Processing — Continuous processing of MongoDB change streams + Kafka. Pipeline aggregations o…
- Atlas Triggers — Database change triggers, scheduled triggers. Run Atlas Functions (Node.js).
- Atlas Vector Search — Vector similarity search via $vectorSearch operator. HNSW index. Up to 4096 dims…
- BYOK Encryption — Bring your own KMS key (AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, GCP KMS).
- Data API — Read/write via REST. Alternative to drivers for edge/serverless.
- Multi-Region Clusters — Single cluster distributed across multiple regions for HA + low latency.
- Online Archive — Tiered storage: automatic cold data movement to cheaper S3-backed storage.
- Private Networking — VPC Peering, PrivateLink, CIDR allowlist.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Knock | MongoDB Atlas |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Knock CLI | Atlas CLI, MongoDB Shell (mongosh) |
| SDK | knockapi (Python), knockapi (Ruby), knock-elixir, knock-go, knock-java, @knocklabs/node, @knocklabs/react | Atlas Device SDK (Realm), MongoDB Go Driver, MongoDB Java Driver, MongoDB .NET/C# Driver, mongodb (Node driver), mongodb (Rust), pymongo |
| REST | Knock REST API | Atlas Admin API, Atlas Data API |
| MCP | Knock MCP Server | MongoDB MCP Server |
| OTHER | Outbound Webhooks | MongoDB Compass (GUI), MongoDB Wire Protocol |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Knock and MongoDB Atlas may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
Want this comparison in your AI agent's context? Install the free Staxly MCP server.