Amazon Auroravs
Cockroach Labs
Cockroach Labs: Open-source distributed SQL database with PostgreSQL compatibility and multi-region replication
Amazon Aurora
MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud
As of 30 August 2026, Amazon Aurora is free to use. Amazon Aurora is a MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud that combines the performance and availability of traditional enterpr. Softwr lists it under Databases. Amazon Aurora is made by Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, available on Web.
Overview
What Amazon Aurora does
Amazon Aurora is a MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud that combines the performance and availability of traditional enterprise databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases. Aurora is up to 5x faster than standard MySQL and 3x faster than standard PostgreSQL.
What people use it for
- Transaction processing
- Data storage
- Application backend
- Reporting
- Data analytics
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Amazon Aurora
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- Amazon AuroravsPlanetScale
PlanetScale: MySQL-compatible serverless database built on Vitess with instant scaling
- Amazon AuroravsNeon
Neon: Serverless PostgreSQL database with branching and autoscaling features
- Amazon AuroravsSupabase
Supabase: Open-source Firebase alternative with PostgreSQL database and real-time capabilities
Pricing
What Amazon Aurora costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Serverless v2
$0.12 /hour
- Auto-scaling
- Pay per ACU
- Instant scaling
Provisioned
$29 /mo
- Dedicated instances
- Predictable performance
- Reserved capacity
Capabilities
Features
MySQL/PostgreSQL Compatible
5x MySQL Performance
Auto-scaling Storage
Global Database
Serverless v2
Multi-master
Fault Tolerant
AWS Lambda
Integration with AWS Lambda
S3
Integration with S3
CloudWatch
Integration with CloudWatch
IAM
Integration with IAM
Secrets Manager
Integration with Secrets Manager
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
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.
SourceWhat 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.
SourceHow 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.
SourceCan Amazon Aurora scale automatically?
Yes, Aurora automatically scales to match workload demands without performance degradation, supporting both read and write scaling.
SourceHow many read replicas does Aurora support?
Aurora supports up to 15 low-latency read replicas for distributing read traffic across your application.
SourceBehind it
Who makes Amazon Aurora
- Company
- Amazon Web Services
- Based in
- Seattle, Washington
Timeline
Amazon Aurora over time
- Milestone2024-01-01
Aurora marks 10 years of database innovation
Source - Launch2017-10-24
Amazon Aurora extended with PostgreSQL compatibility
Source - Launch2015-07-27
Amazon Aurora released and available as part of Amazon RDS
Source - Launch2014-11-12
Amazon Aurora announced at AWS re:Invent conference as MySQL-compatible database engine
Source
Keep looking
Where to go from Amazon Aurora
- Amazon Aurora alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Amazon Aurora pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Amazon Aurora badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Databases softwareThe full category
- Best Databases softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Databases software for
Compare Amazon Aurora with
- PlanetScale
- Firebolt
- FaunaDB
- Cockroach Labs
- Azure SQL
- DataStax
- ScyllaDB
- MariaDB
- Aiven
- Apache Druid
- Couchbase
- QuestDB
- Vitess
- BigQuery
- CosmosDB
- Aiven
- Microsoft SQL Server
- CosmosDB
Other Databases software
Document-relational database whose hosted service closed in 2025 and whose core is now unmaintained Apache 2.0 code.
Free plan14 researched notesFast open source time-series database for high throughput ingestion
Free plan10 researched notesScalable database clustering system for horizontal scaling of MySQL
Free plan12 researched notesGoogle Cloud's serverless analytical warehouse, billed either by bytes scanned per query or by reserved compute slots.
Free plan13 researched notesEnterprise-grade relational database management system
Free plan15 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Amazon Aurora, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Amazon Aurora
Amazon Aurora alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Amazon Aurora pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Amazon Aurora
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Amazon Aurora badge
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