Amazon Aurora Reviews

Name: Amazon Aurora
Brand: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Rating: 4.1 (18 reviews)

4.1 out of 5

18 reviews
100% willing to recommend

What is Amazon Aurora?

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.

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Amazon Aurora is the #7 ranked solution in top Relational Databases. PeerSpot users give Amazon Aurora an average rating of 8.2 out of 10. Amazon Aurora is most commonly compared to SQL Server: Amazon Aurora vs SQL Server. Amazon Aurora is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 74% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 29% of all views.

Helped 851,604 peers since 2012

Featured Amazon Aurora reviews

Adnan Shafiq

Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay

Amazon Aurora ( /products/amazon-aurora-reviews ) provides up to fifteen to sixteen read replicas. It replicates data across multiple Availability Zones, ensuring high availability and geographical redundancy, which can be considered a GR instead of a DR. As a managed service, maintenance tasks like backup and restore are handled by AWS ( /products/amazon-aws-reviews ), saving my organization significant time and money. Additionally, its fast cloning feature allows us to create a new clone from a large database swiftly, similar to a zero-copy cloning feature in Snowflake ( /products/snowflake-reviews ). This makes Amazon Aurora a compelling choice for my organization.

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Girish Mukim

AWS Architect at IBM

One of the most valuable features is storage scaling. Depending on storage requirements, AWS enables auto-scaling of storage. In non-AWS environments, adding storage typically requires downtime. Furthermore, AWS provides out-of-the-box monitoring for performance to ensure there are no performance bottlenecks, and offers the option to switch to higher performance storage for improved performance. Another advantage is that with AWS handling administration, responsibilities like database provisioning and maintenance are significantly reduced. Customers can create services and start using them immediately without worrying about managing hardware or creating databases.

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Peter J Matra

Web Developer and IT Consultant at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees

I believe offering people the option to use Graviton processors or not is important, but they should just have people use the Graviton processors and the more advanced chips to save money. Sometimes mistakes can be easily made, and people can waste money by mistake if they do not know what they are doing.

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Amazon Aurora mindshare

As of May 2025, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora in the Relational Databases Tools category stands at 3.1%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Relational Databases Tools

PeerResearch reports based on Amazon Aurora reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Relational Databases Tools	May 20, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Aurora vs SQL Server	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Aurora vs Oracle Database	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Aurora vs MySQL	May 20, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
SQL Server	4.2	17.9%	93%	268 interviews Add to research
Teradata	4.1	5.3%	87%	76 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Amazon Aurora offers features like maintainability offloaded to the provider, disaster recovery, easy replication, multiple-read and single-write capabilities, SQL standardization, scalability, low-latency replication, MySQL/PostgreSQL compatibility, seamless backups, auto-scaling storage, performance monitoring, high availability, fault tolerance, global writer endpoint, high SLA, and numerous read replicas. AWS handles administration, updates, and backups, providing operational efficiency, speed, and improved performance.

"Amazon Aurora is built on community databases and AWS has added additional features to it, allowing customers to have enterprise-level features at a lower cost."
"My overall experience with Amazon Aurora is very positive. I rate it ten out of ten for its reliability and efficiency."
"One of the standout features of Amazon Aurora is that we do not need to maintain disaster recovery or manage availability zones."

Room for Improvement

Amazon Aurora users suggest improvements in cost-efficiency, database engine integration, and developer focus. They desire enhanced scalability, cryptography, query performance, and UI integrations. Users propose adding benchmarking numbers, Oracle-like comparison tools, and ensuring PostgreSQL version updates. Challenges include migration issues, tuning complexities, and static memory setups. Improved patch application and better update predictability are also desired. Enhanced AI features and a stand-alone version outside Amazon are requested. Regular performance insights and leveraging tools like SolarWinds are beneficial.

"Amazon Aurora should upgrade its base PostgreSQL versions more frequently and offer all PostgreSQL extensions."
"A challenge I noticed is during migration from PostgreSQL RDS to Amazon Aurora. There are technical challenges, such as the inability to provision the database using a PostgreSQL snapshot directly."
"There are tuning challenges."

ROI

Users experienced significant cost savings, with Amazon Aurora reducing expenses by nearly 30% compared to Amazon RDS and around $60,000 annually for some. Aurora enhanced performance, supporting MySQL and PostgreSQL, ensuring fault tolerance and data reliability. Operational costs decreased substantially, with savings in manpower by approximately 50%. Customer satisfaction and availability improved notably. Businesses emphasized understanding cloud pricing to manage costs effectively. While direct monetary gains varied, the operational and service enhancements were clear.

Pricing

Amazon Aurora's pricing reflects its managed service and additional features, with costs based on instance type, memory, storage, and usage. Users appreciate no license fees, pay-as-you-go flexibility, and its cost-efficiency compared to on-premise databases. Although some find it expensive and comparable to Amazon RDS, others note its fair pricing, balancing operational needs with enhanced functionalities. Effective cloud pricing management is crucial for evaluating its expenditures, and the monthly billing structure is favored for its simplicity.

"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"There is no need to buy a license for the product. We can pay as per the use case."
"It is an expensive solution."

Popular Use Cases

Amazon Aurora is primarily used for scalable, high-availability relational databases. Organizations prefer it for storing and managing data in microservices and internal applications due to its fast retrieval and minimal setup requirements. Aurora is favored for data storage, back-end services, payment solutions, and business intelligence. Users appreciate its managed services, automatic scaling, and cost-effectiveness, comparing it to MySQL and PostgreSQL while benefiting from advanced features and geographical redundancy.

Service and Support

Amazon Aurora support varies by subscription level, with quick assistance for business profiles but limited help for free users. Many find documentation sufficient, but self-documenting tools require self-fixing. Issues include underwhelming initial support and challenges for personal accounts. For enterprise users, support is accessible and efficient. Some face regional disruptions, prompting architecture changes. Strong ratings highlight responsive service and helpful engineers, though there's a noted decline in quality due to expansion.

Deployment

Users found Amazon Aurora's initial setup straightforward and manageable. They appreciated its ease and speed, often handled by developers without dedicated maintenance staff. The AWS Management Console and documentation were valuable resources. While migration could extend the setup duration, features like AWS Data Migration Services facilitated the process. Some needed to reference documentation, but this wasn't overly difficult compared to legacy systems. Infrastructure knowledge was sufficient for successful deployment.

Scalability

Amazon Aurora is recognized for its high scalability, capable of handling significant data volumes and supporting numerous users simultaneously. Easily adaptable for expanding environments, AWS manages the scaling process seamlessly, ensuring effortless data growth management. Users appreciate the option for horizontal and vertical scalability, which is vital for businesses shifting to the cloud. The service is praised for its pay-as-you-go model, enhancing its ability to expand without interrupting operations while optimizing resource utilization.

Stability

Amazon Aurora is generally perceived as stable, receiving ratings of eight to ten for reliability. Users highlight consistent performance, high availability, and efficient management for various engines. Although some faced minor issues like force releases and brief bugs, the system promptly recovered. Challenges with log retention were noted. Post-migration, stability concerns were minimal. The service meets expectations, aligning with AWS reliability. Most users encountered minimal downtime, affirming Aurora's robustness in diverse applications.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our Amazon Aurora Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

University

Retailer

Healthcare Company

Construction Company

Media Company

Comms Service Provider

Energy/Utilities Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Educational Organization

Transportation Company

Hospitality Company

Non Profit

Wholesaler/Distributor

Legal Firm

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Outsourcing Company

Sports Company

Compare Amazon Aurora with alternative products

Learn more about Amazon Aurora

Amazon Aurora is up to five times faster than standard MySQL databases and three times faster than standard PostgreSQL databases. It provides the security, availability, and reliability of commercial databases at 1/10th the cost. Amazon Aurora is fully managed by Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), which automates time-consuming administration tasks like hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups.

Amazon Aurora features a distributed, fault-tolerant, self-healing storage system that auto-scales up to 64TB per database instance. It delivers high performance and availability with up to 15 low-latency read replicas, point-in-time recovery, continuous backup to Amazon S3, and replication across three Availability Zones (AZs).

Visit the Amazon RDS Management Console to create your first Aurora database instance and start migrating your MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.