Best offer on record: 30-day Developer Free Trial (ScyllaDB Cloud). 4 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
30-day Developer Free Trial (ScyllaDB Cloud) high confidence
A 30-day free trial on small instances — the official pricing FAQ says 'A 30-day trial running on smaller instances (e.g., AWS t3.micro)', 'perfect for exploring the CQL interface and building prototypes'. Docs add: trial includes drivers and monitoring; trial clusters support Vector and Text Search at no cost but are limited to the smallest index node sizes (AWS t4g.medium, GCP e2-medium, 2 vCPU/4 GiB). 'The free trial is limited to one cluster per account.'
Eligibility
Any user who registers a ScyllaDB Cloud account (no .edu email, no startup requirements). AWS and GCP; deployments supported in most AWS/GCP regions except restricted locations like China. No credit card is explicitly required for the trial itself — the docs quick-start says payment info is only prompted when creating a regular (paid) cluster ('If not already provided, the wizard will prompt you to provide the required payment information').
How to claim
1) Register an account at cloud.scylladb.com (auth.cloud.scylladb.com/oauth/account/login); 2) log in and click 'Free Trial'; 3) configure cluster (name, AWS or GCP, limited instance-type selection, optional Vector/Text Search); 4) launch and connect. One free trial per account.
Expiry
30 days; not renewable — one trial per account, after which you must 'create a regular ScyllaDB Cloud cluster' on a paid plan (On-Demand, Flex Credit, or Contract).
Gotchas
No SLA and no usual support during the trial. Not for production workloads. After expiry, upgrading to paid triggers payment-info entry. Instance type on the current pricing page (t3.micro) differs from docs trial-cluster sizes (t4g.medium/e2-medium) — the docs figures refer to the smallest vector/text-search index nodes, so confirm the available storage-instance list in the UI when you claim. Web-search budget for this session was exhausted partway through, so a couple of side checks (exact trial-instance list, current 48-h evaluation instance) could not be re-verified today.
48-hour Production Evaluation (ScyllaDB Cloud) high confidence
'Production Evaluation: A 48-hour free trial of production-grade instances', 'designed for performance benchmarking and testing ScyllaDB's single-digit millisecond latency under real-world workloads' (current pricing-page FAQ). Launched April 2022 on a high-performance AWS i3.2xlarge instance with known limitations: no backup or repair, no multiple data centers, no cluster resize. Enabled for every ScyllaDB Cloud user since June 2022.
Eligibility
Any registered ScyllaDB Cloud account; aimed at DevOps teams validating performance. Same AWS/GCP coverage as ScyllaDB Cloud (majority of commercially available regions except China and other restricted locations). No credit card explicitly required for the evaluation itself.
How to claim
Register a ScyllaDB Cloud account, log in, and start the production evaluation (per the 2022 launch post: 'Create a New Cluster' and select the free trial option in instance types; solutions architects are available to help design the 48-hour scenario).
Expiry
48 hours; no renewal. After it ends, continue on a paid plan. No backup/repair during the window, so capture data yourself before expiry.
Gotchas
Trial-grade: no SLA, no support commitment, no backup/repair, no multi-DC, no resize — data loss risk at expiry. The i3.2xlarge instance detail comes from the 2022 launch post; current docs only restate 'production-grade instances' without naming a type, so verify in the UI. Not available for actual production traffic.
ScyllaDB Startup Program (12-month free Enterprise licensing) high confidence
Free ScyllaDB licensing 'in accordance with our Master Software License Agreement' for 12 months. Official page: 'Enterprise-grade, hardened, full-featured, no ceiling on the scale of deployment', plus partner opportunities at no additional cost (virtual events, co-marketing collateral; in-person events possible with travel costs that may apply). A 2025 LinkedIn post by a ScyllaDB sales rep frames it as 'beyond the 50 vCPU / 10 TB free-tier cap' — that cap figure is unverified on any official page and should not be relied on.
Eligibility
'A startup with less than $20M USD in total funding'. No company-age limit and no region limit stated on the official page. It is a licensing program (self-hosted / Bring Your Own Account), not a free ScyllaDB Cloud trial — free managed hosting is not included. No credit card required to apply.
How to claim
Go to https://lp.scylladb.com/startups and submit the application (page has an 'Apply here' link / #apply form).
Expiry
12 months; renewal available 'if still within the funding threshold' (i.e., total funding still under $20M).
Gotchas
Free license only: if you run it on AWS/GCP you still pay your cloud bill (or use BYOA). No end-of-term data policy is stated. The 50 vCPU/10 TB 'free-tier cap' referenced in marketing is not on any official page I could fetch — treat as unverified (my web-search budget ran out, so a deep-dive confirmation wasn't possible).
ScyllaDB University + free education resources (no .edu student license) high confidence
ScyllaDB University (university.scylladb.com) is a free, self-paced NoSQL training platform: courses, videos, hands-on labs, and free accounts; free live 'ScyllaDB University LIVE' virtual trainings (e.g., 2025 editions) that are interactive and not available on-demand afterwards. There is no student-specific software license, no .edu-verified discount, and no dedicated education program found — scylladb.com/education/ is a 404, and no startup/education page appears on the pricing page.
Eligibility
Anyone; a free University account is enough. No .edu email requirement. No credit card.
How to claim
Register at university.scylladb.com (free account) and take courses or join the next LIVE event listed there.
Expiry
Ongoing; no expiry on course content. Free access to labs may use a free trial cluster (one per account, 30 days).
Gotchas
This is learning content, not a free managed-database offer — the DB itself still comes from the 30-day trial or a paid license. Do not confuse with other vendors' student programs; ScyllaDB has no equivalent student-credit program found as of 2026-10-22.
No permanent free tier: the only recurring free offers are the two one-time trials (30-day dev trial, 48-hour production evaluation) and the 12-month Startup Program (licensing, under-$20M funded startups). 2025-2026 changes: (1) X Cloud (elastic, tablets-based) launched June 2025 with Flex Credit annual commitments — pricing model changes, but no free tier added; (2) Vector and Text Search became usable on free-trial clusters at no cost, with trial clusters limited to the smallest index node sizes (AWS t4g.medium, GCP e2-medium) and the trial capped at one cluster per account; (3) the 2022 trial definitions (t3.micro dev instance, i3.2xlarge prod evaluation) still appear in the pricing FAQ, while current docs no longer name the dev-trial instance type — the offer survived but its smallest-instance list now differs; (4) no student/education license program exists or was sunset — education/education-licensing offers were not found and scylladb.com/education/ returns 404; free education is via ScyllaDB University only. Note: session web-search budget was exhausted during this research, so instance-level details (current dev-trial instance types, any '50 vCPU / 10 TB' free-tier cap mentioned in a 2025 sales rep's LinkedIn post) are marked medium/unverified.