Convex Self-Hosted vs Cloud Free Tier: Performance Benchmarks

If you’re considering Convex for your real-time application backend, you might be wondering how the self-hosted option compares to the cloud-hosted free tier in terms of performance. I ran comprehensive load tests on both deployments to give you real numbers to work with.

In this article, I’ll share detailed benchmark results comparing self-hosted Convex (with various CDN configurations) against the cloud-hosted version. These tests were conducted on a live application to give you realistic performance expectations.

Test Setup and Methodology

What We’re Testing

I used oha, a modern HTTP load testing tool written in Rust, to benchmark the performance of different Convex deployment configurations. The tests measure how well each setup handles concurrent requests under load.

Test Parameters

All tests were run with the following parameters:

The command used:

oha -n 1000 -c 500 -q 50 https://target-url/

What oha Measures

The oha load testing tool provides several key metrics:

• Success Rate: Percentage of requests that completed successfully (HTTP 200)
• Average Response Time: Mean time from request to response
• Response Time Distribution: Percentile breakdown showing consistency
• Throughput (Requests/sec): How many requests the server handles per second
• DNS+dialup Time: Connection establishment overhead

These metrics help understand both the raw performance and reliability under load.

Test Configurations

I tested four different configurations:

1. Self-Hosted (No CDN): Convex backend running on VPS, accessed directly
2. Self-Hosted (Full CDN): CloudFlare CDN active for both website and Convex endpoints
3. Self-Hosted (Site CDN Only): CloudFlare CDN for website, direct access to Convex
4. Cloud Convex Free Tier: Standard cloud-hosted Convex with CloudFlare on frontend

Benchmark Results

Visual Comparison

Summary Table

Detailed Results

Self-Hosted with No CDN

Direct access to self-hosted Convex without any CDN layer.

oha -n 1000 -c 500 -q 50 https://sh-convex.bitbuddies.me/
Summary:
  Success rate: 100.00%
  Total:        21.1762 secs
  Slowest:      2.8789 secs
  Fastest:      0.2811 secs
  Average:      0.9796 secs
  Requests/sec: 47.2227

  Total data:   125.04 MiB
  Size/request: 128.05 KiB
  Size/sec:     5.90 MiB

Response time histogram:
  0.281 [1]   |
  0.541 [65]  |■■■■
  0.801 [196] |■■■■■■■■■■■■
  1.060 [507] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  1.320 [114] |■■■■■■■
  1.580 [43]  |■■
  1.840 [39]  |■■
  2.100 [17]  |■
  2.359 [7]   |
  2.619 [3]   |
  2.879 [8]   |

Response time distribution:
  10.00% in 0.5999 secs
  25.00% in 0.7839 secs
  50.00% in 0.9395 secs
  75.00% in 1.0484 secs
  90.00% in 1.3932 secs
  95.00% in 1.6885 secs
  99.00% in 2.5827 secs
  99.90% in 2.8789 secs
  99.99% in 2.8789 secs

Details (average, fastest, slowest):
  DNS+dialup:   0.1573 secs, 0.1193 secs, 0.2184 secs
  DNS-lookup:   0.0001 secs, 0.0000 secs, 0.0010 secs

Status code distribution:
  [200] 1000 responses

Key Observations:

• Consistent performance around 1 second average
• Higher DNS+dialup overhead (0.16s average)
• Good baseline for raw server performance
• Most requests (507) clustered around 0.8-1.0s range

Self-Hosted with Full CloudFlare CDN (Best Performance)

This configuration had CloudFlare CDN active for both the main website and all Convex API endpoints.

oha -n 1000 -c 500 -q 50 https://sh-convex.bitbuddies.me/
Summary:
  Success rate: 100.00%
  Total:        20.1391 secs
  Slowest:      0.3701 secs
  Fastest:      0.0803 secs
  Average:      0.1592 secs
  Requests/sec: 49.6546

  Total data:   14.49 MiB
  Size/request: 14.83 KiB
  Size/sec:     736.54 KiB

Response time histogram:
  0.080 [1]   |
  0.109 [97]  |■■■■■■■■■
  0.138 [219] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  0.167 [324] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  0.196 [194] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  0.225 [96]  |■■■■■■■■■
  0.254 [44]  |■■■■
  0.283 [15]  |■
  0.312 [6]   |
  0.341 [3]   |
  0.370 [1]   |

Response time distribution:
  10.00% in 0.1096 secs
  25.00% in 0.1302 secs
  50.00% in 0.1541 secs
  75.00% in 0.1812 secs
  90.00% in 0.2119 secs
  95.00% in 0.2340 secs
  99.00% in 0.2845 secs
  99.90% in 0.3701 secs
  99.99% in 0.3701 secs

Details (average, fastest, slowest):
  DNS+dialup:   0.0371 secs, 0.0230 secs, 0.0795 secs
  DNS-lookup:   0.0001 secs, 0.0000 secs, 0.0007 secs

Status code distribution:
  [200] 1000 responses

Key Observations:

• Extremely consistent response times (0.08s - 0.37s range)
• Lowest average at 0.16 seconds
• Highest throughput at 49.65 req/sec
• Very tight distribution with 99th percentile under 0.3s
• CDN compression reduces data transfer from 128 KiB to 14.8 KiB per request

Self-Hosted with Site CDN Only

CloudFlare CDN active only for the website, with direct access to Convex endpoints.

oha -n 1000 -c 500 -q 50 https://sh-convex.bitbuddies.me/
Summary:
  Success rate: 100.00%
  Total:        20.9452 secs
  Slowest:      2.5710 secs
  Fastest:      0.1678 secs
  Average:      0.6271 secs
  Requests/sec: 47.7436

  Total data:   17.21 MiB
  Size/request: 17.62 KiB
  Size/sec:     841.16 KiB

Response time histogram:
  0.168 [1]   |
  0.408 [246] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  0.648 [374] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  0.889 [251] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  1.129 [81]  |■■■■■■
  1.369 [10]  |
  1.610 [14]  |■
  1.850 [10]  |
  2.090 [1]   |
  2.331 [9]   |
  2.571 [3]   |

Response time distribution:
  10.00% in 0.3242 secs
  25.00% in 0.4105 secs
  50.00% in 0.5658 secs
  75.00% in 0.7757 secs
  90.00% in 0.9235 secs
  95.00% in 1.1089 secs
  99.00% in 2.2318 secs
  99.90% in 2.5710 secs
  99.99% in 2.5710 secs

Details (average, fastest, slowest):
  DNS+dialup:   0.0362 secs, 0.0247 secs, 0.0669 secs
  DNS-lookup:   0.0001 secs, 0.0000 secs, 0.0026 secs

Status code distribution:
  [200] 1000 responses

Key Observations:

• Good performance but more variance than full CDN
• Most requests (374) complete in 0.4-0.6s range
• Occasional spikes at 99th percentile (2.2s)
• DNS+dialup improved by CDN for site (0.04s vs 0.16s without CDN)

Cloud Convex Free Tier

Standard cloud-hosted Convex with the application frontend using CloudFlare.

oha -n 1000 -c 500 -q 50 https://bitbuddies.me/
Summary:
  Success rate: 100.00%
  Total:        22.5101 secs
  Slowest:      4.5336 secs
  Fastest:      0.2140 secs
  Average:      1.8782 secs
  Requests/sec: 44.4246

  Total data:   17.23 MiB
  Size/request: 17.64 KiB
  Size/sec:     783.66 KiB

Response time histogram:
  0.214 [1]   |
  0.646 [34]  |■■■■■
  1.078 [171] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  1.510 [209] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  1.942 [108] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  2.374 [192] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  2.806 [147] |■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
  3.238 [77]  |■■■■■■■■■■■
  3.670 [48]  |■■■■■■■
  4.102 [4]   |
  4.534 [9]   |■

Response time distribution:
  10.00% in 0.8744 secs
  25.00% in 1.1786 secs
  50.00% in 1.8554 secs
  75.00% in 2.4471 secs
  90.00% in 3.0030 secs
  95.00% in 3.3444 secs
  99.00% in 3.8191 secs
  99.90% in 4.5336 secs
  99.99% in 4.5336 secs

Details (average, fastest, slowest):
  DNS+dialup:   0.0399 secs, 0.0244 secs, 0.1982 secs
  DNS-lookup:   0.0001 secs, 0.0000 secs, 0.0141 secs

Status code distribution:
  [200] 1000 responses

Key Observations:

• Slowest average response time at 1.88 seconds
• Wide distribution from 0.21s to 4.53s
• Lower throughput at 44.42 req/sec
• Response times spread across multiple buckets (less consistent)
• Likely affected by geographic distance to Convex cloud servers

Analysis and Insights

Performance Comparison

The benchmark results reveal significant performance differences:

Why Self-Hosted Performs Better

Several factors contribute to the performance advantage:

The CDN Impact

The data clearly shows the impact of proper CDN configuration:

Data Transfer Comparison

The CDN configurations show compression benefits, reducing data transfer by ~88% compared to uncompressed responses.

When to Choose Each Option

Choose Self-Hosted + Full CDN When:

Choose Cloud Convex Free Tier When:

Recommendations

Based on these benchmarks, here are my recommendations:

For Production Applications

1. Self-host Convex on a VPS in the same region as your target users
2. Use CloudFlare (or similar CDN) for both website AND Convex endpoints
3. Configure caching rules appropriately for your API responses
4. Monitor performance regularly with tools like oha

For Development/Staging

1. Cloud Convex free tier is perfectly adequate
2. Use self-hosted for performance testing before production
3. Keep development and production configurations similar

Optimal Infrastructure Setup

Conclusion

The benchmark results clearly demonstrate that self-hosted Convex with proper CDN configuration significantly outperforms the cloud-hosted free tier in terms of response time and consistency. The self-hosted setup with full CDN achieved response times nearly 12x faster than the cloud version.

However, performance isn’t everything. The cloud-hosted option offers simplicity and zero maintenance overhead that may be more valuable during early development stages or for applications where sub-second response times aren’t critical.

For production applications where performance matters, investing time in setting up self-hosted Convex with a proper CDN configuration will deliver substantial improvements in user experience.

Related Resources

FAQ

oha -n 1000 -c 500 -q 50 https://your-convex-app-url/