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Amazon Aurora Serverless vs MariaDB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MariaDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora Serverless is 0.4%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 5.9%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MariaDB5.9%
Amazon Aurora Serverless0.4%
Other93.7%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

MohitGupta3 - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless growth management through serverless efficiency and reasonable pricing
The most valuable feature of Amazon Aurora Serverless is its serverless nature, which means I do not have to maintain the underlying infrastructure. Additionally, it is highly scalable, and its pricing model is favorable. Aurora's automatic scaling greatly enhances our operational efficiency by eliminating the need to set specific thresholds and preventing client data access issues due to uneven growth. Its serverless setup allows us to manage costs effectively. Other notable features include direct integration with tools like SFTP Go for media file uploads, automatic backups ensuring data recovery, and its scalability in terms of handling growing database demands.
KumarManish - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products
We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Amazon Aurora Serverless is its serverless nature, which means I do not have to maintain the underlying infrastructure."
"Aurora could improve its affordability, even though its price is very completive compared to DBs as SLQ Server."
"Amazon Aurora Serverless is easy to scale, offering a cluster-based shared scaling model with options for Autoscale."
"A valuable feature is that we can use it for quite a few things, all the things you'd expect from a server—along the lines of Linux's Lightweight Directory."
"MariaDB is a fast and flexible tool."
"The solution is very easy to implement."
"The solution's high availability is its most valuable aspect."
"It's easy to set up."
"I haven't faced any technical issues with the product, and it works fine."
"I am editing."
"It is a scalable solution. It easily scales up and scales down."
 

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."
"MariaDB should provide HA and archive logging... I haven't had the opportunity to use the features provided by the solution since I don't know how to see them."
"An improvement would be scaling it up to the levels of Oracle, especially when it comes to resilience, so that we can do higher transactions for two databases or power our operation."
"I am editing."
"It would be good if they can maybe improve the mass import in the database. Currently, for importing a large number of data, we create a CSV file and upload all the things in the system. The system does not activate them by default. We have to do this manually. This may be due to the version we are using, but this is something we would like to see improved."
"We'd like more data intelligence."
"The stability could always continue to be improved upon."
"It would be helpful if I could specify multiple drives for the database storage."
"Document caching is an area of concern in the product, where improvements are required to help MariaDB improve on the previous queries as they are retained, and you can roll back to them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing cost is approximately $4000.00 per year and the licensing is based on the software and the number of posts that you make."
"My company uses the free version of the solution."
"The tool is open-source."
"The solution is free, but if you want the enterprise version you will need to pay for some licenses but the cost is less than other solutions, such as Oracle."
"I used the open-source version, which is available free of charge."
"There is a monthly subscription to use MariaDB."
"We pay for a yearly license."
"The cost is quite good. You can have the open source, free version, which has adequate capacity."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise25
 

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 do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
I have found the price of commercial MariaDB to be pretty steep, although not as high as Oracle. Customers often prefer the Community Edition because it's free.
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora Serverless vs. MariaDB and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.