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Amazon Aurora Serverless vs Amazon RDS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Aurora Serverless
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
21st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon RDS
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora Serverless is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon RDS is 1.2%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon RDS1.2%
Amazon Aurora Serverless1.2%
Other97.6%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Anibal Palacios - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Database availability has improved with quick recovery and enhanced network setup
I use Aurora mainly for creating and maintaining databases, such as Aurora (MySQL version) databases, within the system. I value it for its network security and quicker recovery options Aurora is used as it is an easier solution for our requirements and offers high availability. It allows us to…
reviewer2592669 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Positive experiences with database services, with minor room for feature enhancements observed
I don't really see any disadvantages of Amazon RDS. With Oracle, I think AWS doesn't provide the RAC stability. If you have Oracle installed in your own data centers, you can set up various clusters and we can set up the RACs, but in Amazon RDS, we cannot have the RAC feature of Oracle. They could add that feature. Amazon RDS has limitations regarding RAC. If we talk about installing Oracle in RDS, we cannot have the RAC, but if you deploy Oracle on GCP, then there is probably the RAC feature available. I observed that around two or three years back, but I'm not sure whether they have added the RAC feature in AWS. Amazon RDS is expensive compared to GCP. GCP also has the same features, and although it is quite extensive and feature-rich, I see Amazon RDS as slightly expensive compared to other clouds.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon Aurora Serverless is easy to scale, offering a cluster-based shared scaling model with options for Autoscale."
"Aurora could improve its affordability, even though its price is very completive compared to DBs as SLQ Server."
"Aurora makes it easier for me to create an environment within the network, offering faster recovery and 100% availability by replicating databases across two availability zones, and its scalability features for peak workloads are very beneficial."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon Aurora Serverless is its serverless nature, which means I do not have to maintain the underlying infrastructure, and it is highly scalable with a favorable pricing model that greatly enhances our operational efficiency by eliminating the need to set specific thresholds and preventing client data access issues due to uneven growth."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon Aurora Serverless is its serverless nature, which means I do not have to maintain the underlying infrastructure."
"Amazon Aurora Serverless helps in reducing costs by allowing scalable solutions that split read and write endpoints, effectively managing database load and saving on capacity costs compared to our previous solution."
"The product is very, very easy to use."
"I recommend RDS because it makes your life super easy."
"Aurora, the RDS product, is excellent."
"The solution has unique features like backup and recovery, and snapshots. It upgrades automatically. The solution offers easy analytics concerning performance metrics. Its reliability and scalability are very good. The tool's most valuable features are disaster recovery, high availability and scalability."
"Being able to change the size of an RDS MySQL instance is amazing."
"The most valuable aspect of Amazon RDS is it is on the cloud."
"Maintenance is fully automatic (backups, monitoring, and patches)."
"The IT is easy to set up, which is the best."
 

Cons

"Amazon Aurora could improve its detailed monitoring, especially in CloudWatch, to provide more precise query level insights."
"Amazon Aurora Serverless could benefit from a few more security features, particularly in terms of its accessibility."
"Aurora could improve its affordability, as it is currently considered a bit expensive."
"One notable improvement that could enhance the database management experience, particularly during migration scenarios, is the accessibility of the root user."
"There are some advanced monitoring queries that we cannot execute because Amazon doesn't give admin privileges to the end users."
"Technical support could be better."
"The performance is not always as good as MySQL running on its own EC2 instance."
"Need to have in depth understanding of cost, else we are in position to pay more, which makes us think our own DB is better when cost is very huge amount."
"The support team of Amazon RDS provides us with some links to go through whenever we face some issues, but it doesn't work for us."
"The Performance Monitor they have is a little clanky, at least in regards to the UI."
"User interface needs improvement for using IPS and CloudWatch to scale and utilize read replicas, enabling performance insights to view query formats where the bottlenecks occur, identifying the fixes, slow queries, and missing indexes, improving the security and monitoring with alerts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We are paying for a service license."
"AWS is becoming pretty expensive because cheap or absolutely free services have become paid services. Amazon RDS is not an expensive product, but Amazon's ecosystem is becoming increasingly expensive."
"Amazon RDS is an expensive solution."
"The product is expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"By using a combination of Reserve Instances and On-Demand pricing, you can reduce the cost."
"Amazon RDS could improve by reducing the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
31%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Aurora Serverless?
In my experience, Aurora is a bit expensive. The costs depend on the size of the database.
What needs improvement with Amazon Aurora Serverless?
Aurora could improve its affordability, as it is currently considered a bit expensive. There is room to make it more cost-effective for users even though its price is very completive compared to DB...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Aurora Serverless?
I use Aurora mainly for creating and maintaining databases, such as Aurora (MySQL version) databases, within the system. I value it for its network security and quicker recovery options.
What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?
Currently, I cannot think of any major improvements. Perhaps more platforms in terms of database engine versions would be beneficial. Right now, Amazon RDS supports MySQL and PostgreSQL, but there ...
What is your primary use case for Amazon RDS?
I am a Solutions Architect, so I design solutions for our clients. Prior to this role, I was an implementation engineer, so I also implement solutions for our customers.
 

Also Known As

No data available
RDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Edmodo
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora Serverless vs. Amazon RDS and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.