# Connecting with MongoDB Data APIs

On Free projects, Cosmocloud uses MongoDB Data APIs to connect to your database cluster instead of native connection pools / sdks. This is because the Free Projects are deployed on shared infrastructure while the Pro Projects, you get dedicated environments.

When [creating the Database Secret](/getting-started/3.-connect-your-database.md) on Cosmocloud, the platform uses the API keys shared to create the following resources **automatically** in your MongoDB Atlas account -

* We create a MongoDB App Services app named `cosmocloud-integration`.
* We enable Data APIs on the above app.
* We enable authentication via API-Key on the app, generate an API Key for the Cosmocloud platform to connect, and then store the same securely within Cosmocloud's vault.

## MongoDB App Services Pricing

As we are using Data APIs to connect to Cosmocloud on Free Tier, it gets billed under MongoDB App Services pricing.

MongoDB App Services **has a huge monthly free tier** which includes 1 million requests, 500 hours of compute and 10GB of data transfer free every month. Normally, as Cosmocloud allows only 100 API calls on Free Tier, you would not be exceeding this limit, but Cosmocloud does not track or limit this usage and you might incur some cost on MongoDB if you exceed this free tier limit.

## Performance Impact

As Cosmocloud is connecting your database over MongoDB Data APIs **on free tier**, there would be a slight (\~10-30ms) latency added to your Cosmocloud API calls. Therefore, it is not suggested to run your Production or even load test/stress test on Cosmocloud's free tier projects.

{% hint style="info" %}
Cosmocloud uses native Connection Pools (SDKs) to connect to your cluster in Pro Projects, eliminating any performance impact.
{% endhint %}


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