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Databases · head to head

Amazon Aurora vs Teradata

Amazon Aurora logo

Amazon Aurora

Databases

MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Teradata logo

Teradata

Databases

Long-established enterprise MPP data warehouse, rebranded in 2026 as the Autonomous Knowledge Platform, sold for cloud, on-premises and hybrid.

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Amazon Aurora has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Amazon Aurora aurora requires AWS ecosystem knowledge and integration with other AWS services; Teradata licensing is negotiated rather than published, so there is no way to compare total cost against a consumption-priced warehouse without entering a sales cycle, and the comparison is only ever as good as the workload profile you gave them.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Aurora covers MySQL/PostgreSQL Compatible, Teradata covers Massively parallel architecture.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Aurora and Teradata actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Aurora and Teradata differ
AttributeAmazon AuroraTeradata
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelusage-basedquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsAWS CloudWeb
Founded2006Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Databases).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Amazon Aurora

  • MySQL/PostgreSQL Compatible
  • 5x MySQL Performance
  • Auto-scaling Storage
  • Global Database
  • Serverless v2
  • Multi-master
  • Fault Tolerant
  • AWS Lambda

Only in Teradata

  • Massively parallel architecture
  • Workload management
  • Mature cost-based optimiser
  • Cloud, on-premises and hybrid
  • Bulk load utilities
  • BTEQ scripting
  • In-database analytics
  • Enterprise Vector Store

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Amazon Aurora

  • Transaction processingnot Teradata
  • Data storagenot Teradata
  • Application backendnot Teradata
  • Reportingnot Teradata
  • Data analyticsnot Teradata

Teradata

  • A large existing Teradata estate where the practical question is which workloads to migrate first rather than whether to adoptnot Amazon Aurora
  • High-concurrency mixed workloads where hundreds of analysts and scheduled jobs contend and predictable prioritisation matters more than peak single-query speednot Amazon Aurora
  • Regulated reporting where the same query must produce the same answer for years and the audit trail of the existing implementation has valuenot Amazon Aurora
  • Hybrid deployments where regulatory or data-residency rules keep a portion of the warehouse on-premises while the rest moves to cloudnot Amazon Aurora

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Amazon Aurora

  • Aurora requires AWS ecosystem knowledge and integration with other AWS services
  • Pricing can become expensive with high-traffic applications using many read replicas
  • Limited support for non-relational data types compared to NoSQL alternatives

Teradata

  • Licensing is negotiated rather than published, so there is no way to compare total cost against a consumption-priced warehouse without entering a sales cycle, and the comparison is only ever as good as the workload profile you gave them.
  • The SQL dialect and the loading utilities are Teradata-specific, so every stored procedure, macro and BTEQ script written against the platform is migration debt that grows with each release you ship.
  • Primary index choice determines data distribution, and a poorly chosen index concentrates rows on a few processing units, which surfaces as one slow query rather than an error and needs a specialist to diagnose.
  • The skills market is contracting, so DBA and workload-management expertise is expensive to hire, hard to replace when someone retires, and increasingly hard to buy from consultancies whose own bench has moved to cloud warehouses.
  • The 2026 renaming of Vantage, VantageCloud, ClearScape and QueryGrid split documentation, runbooks and vendor material across two naming systems, so searching for an error or a configuration now returns results for a product that is described under a different name.

Pricing, plan by plan

Amazon Aurora

Free
  • Serverless v2$0.12/hour
    • Auto-scaling
    • Pay per ACU
    • Instant scaling
  • Provisioned$29/month
    • Dedicated instances
    • Predictable performance
    • Reserved capacity

Teradata

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Teradata review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Amazon Aurora if

  • You need mysql/postgresql compatible.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on AWS Cloud.
  • You also want 5x mysql performance.
Amazon Aurora review

Choose Teradata if

  • You need massively parallel architecture.
  • You also want workload management.
Teradata review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Aurora or Teradata better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Aurora starts at Free and Teradata at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Aurora or Teradata?
Amazon Aurora has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Amazon Aurora and On request for Teradata.
Does Amazon Aurora or Teradata run on more platforms?
Amazon Aurora runs on AWS Cloud. Teradata runs on Web.
Can I use Amazon Aurora for free?
Yes. Amazon Aurora has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Teradata starts at On request.
What is Amazon Aurora best used for?
Amazon Aurora is most often used for transaction processing, data storage, application backend, reporting. Of those, transaction processing and data storage are not what Teradata is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Aurora do that Teradata cannot?
Amazon Aurora covers MySQL/PostgreSQL Compatible, 5x MySQL Performance, Auto-scaling Storage, Global Database. Teradata covers Massively parallel architecture, Workload management, Mature cost-based optimiser, Cloud, on-premises and hybrid.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Amazon Aurora: Is Amazon Aurora compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL?

Yes, Amazon Aurora offers MySQL and PostgreSQL compatibility with full compatibility to their open-source counterparts, allowing you to migrate existing databases with standard tools.

Source
Teradata: Is Teradata only on-premises?

No. It is sold for cloud, on-premises and hybrid deployment, and the cloud offering is now branded Teradata Cloud. A large part of the installed base is still on-premises or hybrid.

Amazon Aurora: What uptime SLA does Amazon Aurora provide?

Aurora is designed for up to 99.99% single-region uptime and 99.999% multi-region uptime with automatic failover.

Source
Teradata: How does it compare to Snowflake or BigQuery?

On raw elasticity and cost transparency the cloud warehouses win. On mixed-workload concurrency management against a large existing query estate Teradata is still hard to replace, which is why migrations off it take years rather than quarters.

Amazon Aurora: How much does Amazon Aurora cost?

Aurora uses serverless, usage-based pricing where you pay only for consumed capacity. Typical pricing ranges from $50-70 per month for minimal setups to $400-600 per month for small production clusters.

Source
Teradata: Why do organisations stay on it?

Because the cost of leaving is the estate, not the data. Thousands of procedures, scripts and extracts written in a proprietary dialect have to be rewritten and revalidated, and in regulated reporting that revalidation is the expensive part.

Amazon Aurora: Can Amazon Aurora scale automatically?

Yes, Aurora automatically scales to match workload demands without performance degradation, supporting both read and write scaling.

Source
Teradata: What changed in the 2026 rebrand?

Vantage became the Autonomous Knowledge Platform, VantageCloud became Teradata Cloud, ClearScape Analytics became AI Studio and QueryGrid became Fabric. The underlying products are continuous with what came before.

Amazon Aurora: How many read replicas does Aurora support?

Aurora supports up to 15 low-latency read replicas for distributing read traffic across your application.

Source
Teradata: Can it handle AI and vector workloads?

It has added an Enterprise Vector Store and in-database analytics branded AI Studio. Whether that is preferable to moving the data into a purpose-built vector store depends on how much of your data already lives in the warehouse.

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