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Amazon Aurora vs SAP HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.6
Switching to Amazon Aurora saves costs nearly 30% over RDS while improving performance, reliability, and manpower efficiency by 50%.
Sentiment score
6.1
SAP HANA offers time and cost savings, with notable ROI and customization benefits, though integration costs challenge some companies.
Using Amazon Aurora has saved us significantly in terms of manpower costs, with nearly fifty percent savings compared to an on-premises solution.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
We do not feel we're getting value for the investment due to the additional resources needed for integration and maintenance.
Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
I have seen a return on investment with SAP HANA as it typically delivers measurable ROI, especially in finance and month-end close processes.
Finance Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
SAP HANA is a cost-saving solution that helps save money and serves as a time-saving solution that helps save time.
Senior Manager at PwC
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.3
Amazon Aurora offers varying support quality; enterprise users get prompt help, while free trial users experience limited assistance.
Sentiment score
6.1
SAP HANA offers high-quality 24/7 customer service, but experiences vary, with concerns over slow responses and complex issue handling.
Technical support from Amazon is rated very highly.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
The initial support could improve by having engineers familiarize themselves with the issue content to provide more specialized assistance from the start.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
The community support is better than the official SAP support.
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
While issues are resolved eventually, the first level of support is not as good as we would like.
Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees
When we raise a ticket for AWS or Azure issues, we find their support is very proactive, while SAP's support is quite passive.
Senior SAP Basis Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Amazon Aurora excels in scalability, seamlessly auto-scaling for dynamic environments, though AWS's pricing model has limitations.
Sentiment score
7.8
SAP HANA provides scalable enterprise-level solutions, allowing seamless vertical and horizontal expansion to efficiently handle substantial data volumes.
This scalability is critical as it allows for runtime expansion, which is essential for businesses moving from on-premises to the cloud.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
SAP HANA handles large data volumes efficiently, allowing for adding more modules or users without performance issues.
Finance Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Our operations have grown from a hundred data operations a day to as many in a couple of seconds.
Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
It depends on what needs to change in the structure, as some entities cannot be changed and require a new implementation, while others can be modified.
IT Application Manager at TBTD
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Amazon Aurora is stable with occasional minor issues, offering high availability and reliability for MySQL and PostgreSQL engines.
Sentiment score
7.8
SAP HANA is praised for its stability, reliability, and efficiency, with improvements seen in version 2.0 and initial configurations.
It offers a stable environment, ensuring consistent performance.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
We recently faced customer data loss during the cluster handover or failover fallback.
Senior SAP Basis Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We have not had any problems in the last seven to eight years.
Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Regarding stability, they are using legacy systems and have implemented SAP HANA.
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon Aurora users seek better pricing, expanded support, smoother migrations, and improvements in performance, scalability, and developer resources.
SAP HANA needs improvements in interface, scalability, integration, and cost efficiency, with enhanced support, training, and mobile integration.
There are technical challenges, such as the inability to provision the database using a PostgreSQL snapshot directly.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
Keeping extensions up-to-date with PostgreSQL releases would enhance Aurora's functionality.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
I used the backup options in Amazon Aurora for cloning databases. It's very common.
Data & Solution Archtect at Enkel
The main issue is the ecosystem, which lacks the widespread support that SQL enjoys.
Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
The setup process and deployment process for SAP HANA is complex.
Program manger at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high.
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
 

Setup Cost

Amazon Aurora provides flexible, cost-effective pricing with notable performance benefits, though some consider it expensive compared to self-managed solutions.
SAP HANA is costly due to licensing, setup, and hardware expenses, affecting affordability for smaller businesses despite robust capabilities.
The pricing is reasonable and not overly expensive.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
Amazon Aurora is not very expensive as other solutions with similar features from other vendors come at almost the same cost.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
The pricing for Amazon Aurora is different from DocumentDB because DocumentDB is cheaper.
Data & Solution Archtect at Enkel
It's a recurring subscription model, which is expensive compared to legacy systems with just a maintenance fee.
Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
SAP is not a cheap company, and its licenses are expensive.
Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees
I would rate the price for SAP HANA as high.
Senior SAP Basis Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon Aurora offers automated maintenance, high scalability, and compatibility, ideal for diverse databases and efficient FinOps management.
SAP HANA offers real-time processing, integration, scalability, and user-friendly interface, enhancing speed, reporting, and diverse business adaptability.
Amazon Aurora offers a 99.9% SLA compared to PostgreSQL. This ensures a high level of availability for our applications.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
It replicates data across multiple Availability Zones, ensuring high availability and geographical redundancy, which can be considered a GR instead of a DR.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
This architecture allows for faster data processing and real-time analytics that were not possible with traditional databases.
Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
The concept enhances speed, allowing the database to serve and move data quickly.
Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees
One of our dashboards using Excelsius was previously developed on normal BW on Oracle data, which took 10 minutes to open. After developing the same calculation views using those tables and replacing them with calculation views in Excelsius, the dashboard opened in seconds.
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Aurora
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
8th
Ranking in Database Management Systems (DBMS)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP HANA
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
3rd
Ranking in Database Management Systems (DBMS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Embedded Database (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.0%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP HANA is 7.5%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP HANA7.5%
Amazon Aurora3.0%
Other89.5%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SP
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
High availability and operational efficiency achieved with reliable managed services
We have primarily used Amazon Aurora for handling our databases. We migrated from PostgreSQL to Amazon Aurora about a year ago. It serves as a customized PostgreSQL database that we utilize Amazon Aurora offers a 99.9% SLA compared to PostgreSQL. This ensures a high level of availability for our…
HP
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
Performs well with high database and reporting performance
We face difficulties replicating the AC DOCA table, which is a huge table, from S/4HANA to SAP HANA BAS, Business Application Studio, or HANA Studio using SLT. For developing Power BI reports using the AC DOCA table, we are replicating full data daily. We want to implement delta load, and while we used OData service for one client, the delta OData service link is not properly updating delta records. Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high. Due to high pricing, many clients are moving from BW on SAP HANA and S/4HANA to Azure SQL. I have worked with several clients who have moved all data flows to Azure and developed Power BI queries on top of Azure. Many clients are also using Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The certification costs are also very high, more than ₹1,40,000 INR. Previously, it was ₹30,000 to ₹40,000. I want to pursue three certifications but am unable to do so due to the cost.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise62
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Aurora?
Aurora's compatibility with MySQL or PostgreSQL benefited our database management. The migration from on-premise MySQL to Aurora was similar, so we didn't need to change our source code.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Aurora?
The pricing for Amazon Aurora is different from DocumentDB because DocumentDB is cheaper. However, when you manage the administration more closely, you can control costs better with Amazon Aurora. ...
What needs improvement with Amazon Aurora?
I would like to see some tutorials from Amazon for Aurora because I'm too new to it. I believe Amazon can make more tutorials for the product since there's a lot of reading required, and a short tu...
What are the biggest benefits of using SAP HANA?
Based on my work with SAP HANA, the biggest benefit that it can bring to your business is total data management. This product is by SAP - a company that serves almost all needs a client may have co...
Is SAP HANA’s customer and technical support reliable?
We have been using SAP HANA for a fairly short period of time and have only taken advantage of their customer support. So far, we have not had issues that required specialized help from technical s...
Is SAP HANA difficult to set up and start using?
SAP HANA is fairly easy to set up, however, I do not think a complete beginner can do it. You certainly need some preparation - either you need to have experience with similar solutions, or with ot...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel
Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. SAP HANA and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.