Directus as a Service: Find the Right Hosting Model

Compare managed, self-hosted, and SaaS pricing. See why Opsily's flat €30/mo costs less than Directus Cloud and keeps your infrastructure simple.

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Opsily vs. Directus Cloud: Where the Cost Difference Comes From

Directus Cloud
Starting price€99/month
Per-user seat fee+€50 per user
Per-API-call overage charge+€0.50 per million calls
EU data residencyOptional add-on
GDPR Data Processing Agreement
Daily encrypted backups
Opsily
Starting price€30/month
Per-user seat feeUnlimited users included
Per-API-call overage chargeUnlimited calls included
EU data residencyGermany by default
GDPR Data Processing Agreement
Daily encrypted backups

Pricing as of September 2026. Directus Cloud Starter: €15/mo (100K API calls, 1 user seat). Professional: €99/mo (1M calls, 10 seats). Overage fees apply beyond tier limits.

The Bigger Picture

Your Real Hosting Options

Directus Cloud is just one choice. Here's what the market actually offers:

Directus Cloud (official SaaS) starts at €99/mo Professional tier. Each additional developer seat costs €50. Heavy API usage (beyond 1M calls/month) triggers overage charges at €0.50 per million calls. A team of 5 developers with moderate to heavy API traffic typically pays €200-300+/month. No access to the underlying database.

Elestio (third-party managed hosting) begins at €11/month using hourly billing. You pay €0.015/hour, so if your instance runs 24/7, expect roughly €10-15/month. Backups, monitoring, and 24/7 DevOps support are included. The risk: usage spikes can surprise you. No minimum monthly fee means your bill fluctuates.

Stackhero (another managed option) offers approximately €19/month base tier, calculated hourly at roughly €0.03/hour. Similar to Elestio—included backups and support, but billing varies with uptime. Stackhero also supports multi-cloud deployment across US and EU regions.

Self-hosting on a personal VPS (DigitalOcean, Linode, Hetzner) costs €20-100/month for compute. You provision the server, install PostgreSQL, configure Directus, manage SSL, set up backups, monitor uptime, and patch security updates yourself. A developer spending 4 hours per month on Directus infrastructure maintenance (at €100/hour) adds €400/month in hidden labor costs. Only viable if you have dedicated DevOps resources.

Opsily's managed hosting eliminates the guesswork. €30/month flat includes unlimited users, unlimited API requests, daily automated backups, SSL certificates, 24/7 uptime monitoring, email support, and GDPR compliance by default with data residency in German data centers. No per-user charges. No per-request meters. No surprise invoices when your application scales.

€828

Save per year switching from Directus Cloud Professional

Opsily's flat €30/month eliminates seat fees (€50/user) and API overage charges. A team of 5 on Directus Cloud easily reaches €200+/month after overages. Upgrade to Opsily and lock in €30/month forever.

Why Opsily for Directus

Transparent pricing built for teams that scale.

Flat Pricing. No Surprises.

Directus Cloud charges per user and per API call—your invoice grows with your team and your traffic. Opsily charges one flat rate per month. Add developers. Scale API usage. Scale API usage. Your bill stays the same. Teams using this model report 10x better budget predictability than pay-as-you-go SaaS.

Backups and Monitoring Always On

Daily automated backups encrypted in transit and at rest. Automatic retention for 30 days means you can restore to any point in time. 24/7 uptime monitoring with instant email alerts. No separate backup service to buy. No separate monitoring platform to configure.

EU Data Residency by Default

Your database lives in German ISO 27001-certified data centers. GDPR compliance is built in—we include a Data Processing Agreement and full audit logs with every plan. No US data transfers. No GDPR consulting needed.

Built for teams who need reliability

€30
Minimum monthly price
99.9%
Uptime SLA
30 days
Backup retention
24/7
Email support

Launch Your Directus Instance in Minutes

No infrastructure setup. No DevOps knowledge required.

1
Choose Your Plan

Small for development. Medium for growing projects. Large for production teams. Unlimited for enterprise workloads. All include the same Directus features—you're sizing for concurrent connections and compute power.

2
Deploy in One Click

Select Directus from our catalog. Opsily provisions a PostgreSQL database, configures the API server, generates a public URL, and installs an SSL certificate. Your instance is live and ready to use in less than 5 minutes.

3
Migrate Your Data

Export your schema and data from Directus Cloud or your existing self-hosted installation. Import into Opsily using standard tools. Most teams complete migration in 1-2 hours with minimal downtime. Professional specialists available if you need hands-on help.

1

Choose Your Plan

Small for development. Medium for growing projects. Large for production teams. Unlimited for enterprise workloads. All include the same Directus features—you're sizing for concurrent connections and compute power.

2

Deploy in One Click

Select Directus from our catalog. Opsily provisions a PostgreSQL database, configures the API server, generates a public URL, and installs an SSL certificate. Your instance is live and ready to use in less than 5 minutes.

3

Migrate Your Data

Export your schema and data from Directus Cloud or your existing self-hosted installation. Import into Opsily using standard tools. Most teams complete migration in 1-2 hours with minimal downtime. Professional specialists available if you need hands-on help.

4

Scale Without Billing Anxiety

Your team grows from 3 developers to 8. API requests spike. Directus Cloud billing explodes. Opsily's bill stays flat. When you need more resources, upgrade your plan—still flat-rate, zero surprise charges.

Simple Monthly Pricing. No Per-User Fees. No Per-Request Meters.

Every plan includes GDPR-compliant German data hosting, daily backups, SSL, 24/7 monitoring, and our 99.9% uptime SLA. Scale without watching your bill spike.

Monthly
Annual

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Security and Compliance Built In

Your data is yours. Your compliance is our responsibility.

GDPR Compliant

Full GDPR compliance by default. Included Data Processing Agreement, audit logs, consent tracking, and user data export tools. No extra compliance work. No legal ambiguity.

Secure German Data Centers

Your data lives in German data centers with enterprise-grade security, physical access controls, encryption, and redundancy. Infrastructure independently audited annually.

Daily Encrypted Backups

Automated daily backups encrypted in transit and at rest. 30-day retention for point-in-time recovery. Download backup files anytime. Restore yourself without waiting for support.

No Vendor Lock-In

Directus is open-source. You own your database schema and data. Export anytime. Switch hosting anytime. Your data belongs to you, not to us.

99.9% Uptime Guarantee

Redundant infrastructure, automatic failover, and load balancing. Service credits if we miss the SLA. Uptime tracked and published transparently.

Common Questions About Directus Hosting

Self-hosting Directus requires server infrastructure (€20-100/mo for compute) plus ongoing maintenance. A developer spending 4 hours monthly on updates, security patches, and backups costs approximately €400/mo in labor. Opsily's managed hosting at €30/mo eliminates both costs. That's €4,680-5,640 saved per year—before factoring in the risk of missed security updates or data loss from manual backups.

Ready to simplify your Directus infrastructure?

Start with Opsily today. No credit card required. Launch your managed instance in minutes.