← Back to home
Comparison · DevOps

Rivet vs Aiven

A side-by-side editorial comparison of Rivet and Aiven — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

Rivet vs Aiven: at a glance

FeatureRivetAiven
SectorDevOpsDevOps
Velocity score7.56.3
Sparks · 30d30
Top themesactors, ai agents, sqlite, forkingmanaged-databases, clickhouse, postgresql, grafana
Last editorial update2d ago1d ago
Website—Visit →

What is Rivet?

Rivet Actors can now fork in 20 ms, SQLite database included, without copying data.

Rivet builds infrastructure for long-lived actors and AI agents: BYOC, OpenTelemetry tracing, actor-scoped JWTs and agentOS Hosted VMs. The 3.0 Preview made Rivet a single stateless binary on S3, and the Rust SDK reached general availability on 6 November. On 11 November Rivet added actor forking: a fork starts in 20 ms with the original actor's state and SQLite database and costs nothing until it writes.

Read the full Rivet trajectory →

What is Aiven?

Aiven moves Grafana to 13 and gives Runtime apps custom domains.

Aiven's November releases mix pricing changes with plumbing between its own services. The MySQL free tier stops on 21 December, bring-your-own-key encryption is included at no extra cost, and a change-data-capture integration now copies PostgreSQL tables into ClickHouse in limited availability. On 12 November Grafana 13.2 became available alongside 12.4, without Git Sync or the Synthetic Monitoring app, and Aiven Runtime applications gained custom domains and readable URLs.

Read the full Aiven trajectory →

Rivet vs Aiven: editorial side-by-side

R
Rivet
DEVOPS
7.5

Rivet Actors can now fork in 20 ms, SQLite database included, without copying data.

◆ Current state

Rivet builds infrastructure for long-lived actors and AI agents: BYOC, OpenTelemetry tracing, actor-scoped JWTs and agentOS Hosted VMs. The 3.0 Preview made Rivet a single stateless binary on S3, and the Rust SDK reached general availability on 6 November. On 11 November Rivet added actor forking: a fork starts in 20 ms with the original actor's state and SQLite database and costs nothing until it writes.

◆ Where it's heading

Rivet keeps turning its S3-backed storage engine into features for agent workloads. Copy-on-write forking follows from the 3.0 storage design and gives agents a cheap way to branch a session, try something and discard it. The SDK and auth work of the past two months points to Rivet positioning actors as the runtime for agent backends.

◆ Prediction

Forking is likely to show up next in agentOS and the Pi integrations as a way to branch agent runs; the entries do not say when 3.0 leaves preview.

A
Aiven
DEVOPS
6.3

Aiven moves Grafana to 13 and gives Runtime apps custom domains.

◆ Current state

Aiven's November releases mix pricing changes with plumbing between its own services. The MySQL free tier stops on 21 December, bring-your-own-key encryption is included at no extra cost, and a change-data-capture integration now copies PostgreSQL tables into ClickHouse in limited availability. On 12 November Grafana 13.2 became available alongside 12.4, without Git Sync or the Synthetic Monitoring app, and Aiven Runtime applications gained custom domains and readable URLs.

◆ Where it's heading

Aiven is filling out the layer around its databases: logs, access control, encryption, dashboards and now an application runtime with its own domains. Each release is small, but together they make it easier to keep both data and the apps that use it on Aiven.

◆ Prediction

Expect more Aiven Runtime features that connect apps to Aiven's own databases, and a default-version switch to Grafana 13 once 12.4 nears end of support.

Alternatives to Rivet and Aiven

Other DevOps products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Rivet or Aiven.

See all Rivet alternatives → · See all Aiven alternatives →

Recent activity from Rivet and Aiven

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 1d agoAivenAiven for Grafana® 13 is now available
  2. 1d agoAivenCustom domains and friendly URLs for Aiven Runtime applications
  3. 2d agoRivetIntroducing OpenOrange: Run Cloudflare Workers Anywhere ⚡
  4. 3d agoAivenReplicate PostgreSQL tables to ClickHouse with CDC (limited availability)
  5. 3d agoRivetIntroducing Actor Forking for SQLite ⚡
  6. 4d agoAivenExport event logs
  7. 4d agoAivenDatabase-level access control for Aiven for Valkey™
  8. 4d agoAivenApache Kafka MirrorMaker 2 now supports multiple versions
  9. 8d agoRivetRust SDK for Rivet Actors Is Now Generally Available
  10. 19d agoRivetIntroducing Rivet 3.0 Preview ⚡
  11. 1mo agoRivetIntroducing agentOS 0.4 & Hosted VMs
  12. 1mo agoRivetIntroducing Pi Durable for Rivet

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Rivet and Aiven?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Rivet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 6.3), with 3 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is Rivet better than Aiven?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Rivet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 6.3), with 3 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other DevOps products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to Rivet?

Top Rivet alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Rivet alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rivet for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Aiven?

Top Aiven alternatives in DevOps are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Aiven alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/aiven for the full list with editorial commentary on each.