Amazon Aurora Reviews

Name: Amazon Aurora
Brand: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Rating: 4.2 (19 reviews)

4.2 out of 5

19 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.

Get the Amazon Aurora Buyer's Guide and find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora, SQL Server, Teradata and more!

Amazon Aurora is the #7 ranked solution in top Relational Databases. PeerSpot users give Amazon Aurora an average rating of 8.4 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 73% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 26% of all views.

Helped 861,490 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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Amazon Aurora mindshare

As of July 2025, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora in the Relational Databases Tools category stands at 2.9%, 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	Jul 14, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Jul 14, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Aurora vs SQL Server	Jul 14, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Aurora vs Oracle Database	Jul 14, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Aurora vs SAP HANA	Jul 14, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
SQL Server	4.2	16.9%	93%	269 interviews Add to research
Teradata	4.1	5.3%	87%	76 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Amazon Aurora valuable features include offloading maintenance, disaster recovery, multi-read/single-write capabilities, SQL standardization, scalability, low-latency replication, high availability, MySQL and PostgreSQL compatibility. It supports automated backups, auto-scaling, monitoring of large databases, global instances with seamless failover, high redundancy, multiple read replicas, reader endpoints, and efficient performance with dynamic storage auto-scaling. Aurora's fault tolerance and reduced administrative tasks enhance operational efficiency.

"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 could benefit from reduced costs and more support for Oracle databases. Enhanced performance insights and improved distributed query processing are desired. Users request consistent updates, AI features, and better scalability. Migration from PostgreSQL and lack of benchmarking figures are concerns. There's a need for a comparison tool and better tuning capabilities. Aurora should offer frequent PostgreSQL upgrades and tutorials for new users. Emphasis on offering Graviton processors is suggested alongside better patch management options.

"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

Many reported significant cost reductions after migrating from Amazon RDS to Amazon Aurora, with savings up to thirty percent on larger Oracle instances and approximately $60,000 annually. Time savings and operational cost improvements were highlighted. Aurora offers better performance, supporting MySQL and PostgreSQL, along with managed backups, high fault tolerance, and data reliability. Increased customer satisfaction was noted due to improved availability, while manpower cost savings reached fifty percent compared to on-premises.

Pricing

Amazon Aurora's pricing model offers pay-as-you-go flexibility, with no need for licenses, which users find cost-effective compared to previous on-premises solutions. While some users find it expensive, especially when compared to self-managed databases, others appreciate its competitive edge and additional features over RDS. Costs are influenced by usage and performance levels, with monthly billing available. Effective management of cloud pricing is crucial, and many find Aurora's costs align well with their operational needs.

"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 utilized for scalable microservices, high availability, and data storage in various applications. Organizations deploy it on AWS's managed service, taking advantage of its capacity for read replicas and auto-scaling. It supports internal applications, backend services, and serves as a data warehouse. Aurora is preferred for migrating from Oracle or PostgreSQL due to cost-effectiveness and AWS's enhanced features. While some encountered performance challenges, many appreciate its enterprise-level offerings and simplicity in setup.

Service and Support

Amazon Aurora's customer service and support depend on subscription level. Business and enterprise profiles receive prompt and helpful assistance, whereas personal and trial accounts face limited support. Users note responsive service for paying customers but express challenges for free-tier queries. Issues arise with inexperienced initial support and service disruptions. Many find documentation clear enough, while some adjust architecture to mitigate regional outages. AWS support is rated highly by users, with effective and detailed assistance for technical issues.

Deployment

Amazon Aurora's initial setup is widely considered easy and manageable. Users highlight its straightforward nature, often requiring minimal time and basic database knowledge. Many appreciate the intuitive AWS Management Console and documentation, which facilitate infrastructure creation and configuration. While some mention using tools like Terraform and CloudFormation, most experience minimal challenges. Maintenance and complex tasks are frequently managed by Amazon, with migration processes also receiving positive feedback for their simplicity and effectiveness.

Scalability

Amazon Aurora is consistently praised for scalability, handling large data efficiently across multiple regions. Users appreciate seamless resource expansion without disrupting services and find it suits various industries. Scalability ratings mostly range from six to nine out of ten. The pay-as-you-go model supports significant growth potential, with AWS managing backend operations. Features like auto-scaling and horizontal scalability are particularly advantageous for fluctuating user numbers, making it viable across cloud transition scenarios.

Stability

Amazon Aurora is regarded as highly stable by many, with ratings between eight and ten. Users appreciate its reliability and high availability, with few bugs initially resolved via resources like documentation and ChatGPT. Some experienced downtimes linked to specific instances, but these were rare. Long-term log retention is a concern for some users, though they find Aurora consistent in performance, particularly post-migration and for specific business scenarios not requiring heavy transactional activity.

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

26%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Healthcare Company

Insurance Company

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

University

Media Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Comms Service Provider

Real Estate/Law Firm

Educational Organization

Hospitality Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Transportation Company

Legal Firm

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Non Profit

Sports Company

Outsourcing Company

Performing Arts

Marketing Services Firm

Renewables & Environment 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.