SurrealDB Enterprise Edition uses the same core SurrealDB server, with additional capabilities enabled by a licence key. Enterprise and Community use different binaries, so Enterprise-only features are available only in the Enterprise build. Moving between Community and Enterprise does not require changes to your schema, queries, or SDK code.
What the edition adds
| Capability | What it is | Documented |
|---|---|---|
| Fault tolerance | Always-on clusters that run across different availability zones, so the database keeps serving through the loss of a node or a whole zone. | SurrealDS |
| Storage scalability | A distributed storage architecture backed by object storage, so storage grows with your data without you having to shard the database. | SurrealDS |
| Compute scalability | Horizontal scaling from 3 nodes to tens of nodes, to raise concurrency and the compute capacity available to your workload. | SurrealDS |
| Audit logging | An identity-bound record of every authenticated action - statements, queries, transactions, RPC calls, sign-ins, sessions and HTTP requests - written to a durable NDJSON sink, with optional SHA-256 hash chaining and PII redaction. | Audit logging |
| Distributed live queries | Live queries that resolve across every node in a cluster rather than the node holding the subscription. | Contact sales |
| FIPS mode | FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic modules, and the switch that enforces their use. | Contact sales |
| Trusted execution | Running the server inside a trusted execution environment, with attestation. | Contact sales |
| Contractual support | Support tiers with defined response times by severity, and uptime commitments. | Contact sales |
S3-compatible bucket backends were available in Enterprise builds only before 3.3.0. From 3.3.0 the Community build includes them, alongside Google Cloud Storage and Azure Blob Storage, and Enterprise uses the same backends. See DEFINE BUCKET.
Licence key
Available since: v3.3.0
An Enterprise build needs a valid licence to start. SurrealDB issues the licence to your organisation, and administrators find its key on the organisation's Licences page in SurrealDB Studio. Each node reads the key from SURREAL_LICENSE_KEY or from the file that SURREAL_LICENSE_KEY_FILE names, and validates it online against api.keygen.sh when it starts and every 30 minutes while it runs. A licence that includes offline use can also run from a signed licence file, with no network access.
Licensing explains how to get a trial or a licence, where to find the key and the licence file in Studio, where to put them for Docker, your own machines and the Kubernetes operator, and what a node does when its licence expires or cannot be checked.
The Enterprise build is published on Docker Hub as surrealdb/surrealdb-enterprise. Run with Docker has an example that passes the licence key.
SurrealDS
Available since: v4.0.0
SurrealDS is the distributed storage engine in SurrealDB Enterprise. It provides the fault tolerance, storage scalability and compute scalability in the table above. Run it with the Kubernetes operator or on your own machines.
Observability
The Enterprise observability surface is documented in full alongside the Community one, with the Enterprise-only parts marked. Start there rather than here:
Audit logging - events captured, record shape, rotation, hash chaining, redaction and overflow semantics.
Configuration - every audit-log environment variable, and the compliance checklist for a tamper-evident deployment.
Enterprise observability - the pipelines that exist only in an Enterprise build.
Slow-query logging - the sister pipeline for the long tail of slow queries.
Licensing and getting in touch
Licence models, pricing, support tiers and the specifics of FIPS, trusted execution and distributed live queries are handled by the SurrealDB team rather than published here. Contact us to discuss an evaluation, a licence, or an upgrade from an existing Community cluster.
Moving an existing deployment to Enterprise on the same storage engine does not migrate data. The Enterprise binary reads the same storage and the same schema, and the licence key is what changes. SurrealDS is a different storage engine, so a move to SurrealDS is a move of the data.