A Directus alternative for knowledge & agent retrieval
This page is for teams building structured app content, knowledge bases, and AI/agent retrieval on a managed platform. If you want to self-host on your own SQL database and own the infrastructure, Directus is built for exactly that — this page is for people who want that class of structured backend as a managed service.
The frame: Directus turns your SQL database into an API; FoxNose is the knowledge layer an agent actually retrieves from. And it comes with public flat pricing — no license keys to register, no sales call to get a quote.
Assemble it on Directus, or managed on FoxNose
Directus is a database-first API you shape and extend. For a knowledge-and-retrieval workload, several concerns are things you assemble on top of it — the same concerns FoxNose handles as properties of one managed API.
| Managed on FoxNose | Assemble it on Directus | |
|---|---|---|
| Semantic / hybrid search | Hybrid semantic search — vector + keyword + filters fused server-side in one call, on every plan including Free | No native semantic search. Assemble it: pgvector or Pinecone, your own embedding pipeline, a Flow or extension to keep vectors in sync, and your own query path to fuse vectors with filters |
| Multi-tenancy | Tenant in the URL, ownership verified per request, and deleting a tenant cascades to their records and embeddings | DIY: a tenant_id field plus role filter rules you have to get right on every collection and endpoint — or one instance per tenant |
| Referential ownership | Strict reference: parent-child ownership enforced per request at the API, cascade delete including embeddings | SQL foreign-key cascade you configure per relation; no API-level ownership chain and no automatic cascade of derived artifacts like embeddings |
| Delivery path | Dual API: a read-optimized Flux delivery API and a separate authoring Management API | One dynamic REST + GraphQL surface over your SQL database — the same API reads and writes |
| Environments & schema promotion | Environments per project, with versioned schemas and revisions | Separate installs; promoting schema between them is manual snapshot / diff / apply scripting |
| License & pricing certainty | Public flat tiers from $0, usage-metered with a spend cap. No license to register, no sales call for a price | Source-available under the MSCL, with registration keys and two relicenses in three years. Managed Cloud starts at a $99/mo hosting add-on; the paid Team plan is $499/mo; Enterprise is a custom quote |
More on the pieces: the agent-native model, the Knowledge MCP, strict reference, and multi-tenant scoping.
What each one costs to start
Compared per line item, not as a single ratio. FoxNose is self-serve from $0; Directus has a free self-hosted Core tier but no free managed-cloud tier — managed Cloud starts at a $99/mo hosting add-on, the paid Team plan is $499/mo, and seats are metered on top.
- ✓Free — $0 — 10,000 retrievals, 5,000 writes, 0.5 GB data — hybrid search included
- ✓Starter — $19/mo — 75,000 retrievals, 20,000 writes, 5 GB data
- ✓Pro — $99/mo — 400,000 retrievals, larger quotas
- ✓Overage — $0.20 / 1,000 retrievals — Flat on every paid plan; errors are never billed
- ✓Spend cap, default 2× plan — Self-serve signup — no sales call, no license keys
- •Core — $0 — 3 user seats, 25 collections, 5 Flows, advanced RBAC — self-hosted free, or Cloud hosting as a +$99/mo add-on
- •No free managed-cloud tier — Free use is self-hosting; managed Cloud starts at the $99/mo hosting add-on
- •Team — $499/mo (billed annually; $599 monthly) — 10 SSO seats, 50 collections, 20 Flows — extra seats +$50/seat/mo
- •Enterprise — custom contract — SSO (SAML / OIDC), custom scale, offline mode, SLAs
- •Open Innovation Grant — Free self-hosting for orgs under $5M revenue and under 50 employees
See the full breakdown on the FoxNose pricing page — every feature is on every plan; tiers differ by scale, not by capability.
Cases where Directus is the better pick
Bring your own SQL database
This is the Directus headline, and it is a real one: point it at your existing Postgres, MySQL, or SQLite and it wraps that database in a REST and GraphQL API. FoxNose is a managed store — you do not bring a database to it.
Self-hosting & infrastructure ownership
Under the MSCL Innovation Grant you can run Directus on your own servers and own the whole stack. FoxNose is managed-only. If self-hosting or on-prem is a requirement, Directus is built for exactly that.
File & asset pipeline with image transforms
Directus stores files and does on-the-fly image transformations and presets. FoxNose has no asset pipeline — bring a CDN or object store for media.
Flows automation & Insights dashboards
A visual, no-code automation builder and built-in analytics dashboards over your data. FoxNose does not ship a workflow engine or a dashboard product.
GraphQL
Directus exposes a full GraphQL API alongside REST. FoxNose is REST plus an embedded MCP surface — there is no GraphQL endpoint.
Generic app backend / BaaS
For a general-purpose backend behind any app — arbitrary collections, users, files, roles — Directus is a broad BaaS. FoxNose is scoped to structured knowledge and agent retrieval, not a catch-all backend.
The knowledge layer, managed
Typed content, hybrid semantic search, strict-reference multi-tenancy, and an embedded MCP server behind one API — no database to bring, no license to register. Start free with 10,000 retrievals and 5,000 writes, no credit card.
Frequently asked questions
- Is FoxNose a drop-in replacement for Directus?
- No — the center of gravity is different. FoxNose does not let you bring your own SQL database, has no file or asset pipeline, and exposes no GraphQL endpoint. It is a managed knowledge layer built for structured content and agent retrieval: typed collections, hybrid semantic search, strict-reference ownership, and an embedded MCP server behind one API. If your project leans on the parts above, FoxNose is not a substitute for them.
- Does Directus have semantic search?
- Not natively and not as a first-party feature — built-in semantic search is a long-standing, heavily-upvoted request that remains open and unshipped on their roadmap. Directus gives you rich SQL-style filters and a search parameter that matches root-level string fields with no relevance ranking. Adding semantic search means assembling it yourself: pgvector or Pinecone, your own embedding pipeline, a Flow or extension to keep vectors in sync, and your own query path. On FoxNose, hybrid search — vector, keyword, and filters fused in one call — is on every plan, including Free.
- Doesn't Directus have an MCP server too?
- Yes. Directus ships a native, permissions-scoped MCP server (v11.13+) with CRUD and schema operations and an audit trail — that is real and worth crediting. The honest contrast is what the tools operate on: Directus MCP is authoring and CRUD over your generic SQL database with keyword-only search, while the FoxNose MCP includes hybrid semantic search tools over a retrieval-optimized store, under the same auth as REST.
- What about the Directus license?
- Directus relicensed from GPLv3 to BSL 1.1 in 2023, then in April 2026 (with v12) moved to the Monospace Sustainable Core License (MSCL), a source-available license. Free "Innovation Grant" use now requires both under $5M revenue and under 50 employees, software registration keys replace the earlier honor system, there is a four-year conversion back to GPLv3 and a competing-use restriction, and some enterprise features sit behind paid tiers. That is two relicenses in three years. FoxNose is plain SaaS — there is no license to track and no registration key.
- Can I self-host FoxNose?
- No. FoxNose is managed-only; there is no self-hosted distribution. If self-hosting or owning the infrastructure is a hard requirement, that is exactly the shelf Directus (or Payload) is built for, and you should reach for one of those instead.
- How does multi-tenancy compare?
- On Directus, multi-tenancy is by convention: a tenant_id field plus role filter rules you have to apply correctly on every collection and endpoint, or one instance per tenant. On FoxNose it is enforced by the data layer — strict-reference collections put the tenant in the URL, ownership is verified per request, and deleting a tenant cascades to their records and embeddings. See the multi-tenant agent memory guide for how that is set up.
Comparison based on publicly available pricing and documentation, checked 2026-07-23.
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