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Amazon Aurora Serverless vs SQL Server 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
21st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora Serverless is 1.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 10.7%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.7%
Amazon Aurora Serverless1.3%
Other88.0%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

MohitGupta3 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Infrastructure Architect - AWS at Infopro Digital
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.
Peter Larsson - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads
SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 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 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."
"It's great that the nodes are synchronized so if you lose one it automatically moves to another."
"Excel integration is one of its most valuable features."
"SQL Server is very good, it can be used as a transactional database and used to support the data warehouse."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is that it's integrated with the Visual Studio and also with Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio. It's a tool they have and it's quite easy to use and understand. It's the interface for programming for SQL Services."
"We have found there are many useful features such as the solution is continually being upgraded, ETL capabilities for extracting and transformation, and it is very easy to use."
"SQL Server Profiler makes finding and debugging easy."
"It integrates well with other platforms."
"Its availability for a secured server is one of its most valuable features, and its replication features are valuable because we can manage eight replicas, while their clustering and availability groups are also valuable."
 

Cons

"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."
"Amazon Aurora could improve its detailed monitoring, especially in CloudWatch, to provide more precise query level insights."
"Aurora could improve its affordability, as it is currently considered a bit expensive."
"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."
"Regarding integration, the solution works well for different courses without any issues. However, if we want to add machine learning and AI capabilities for business analytics, that's an area where improvements could be made."
"When transferring data from the SQL Server to Excel, the data types are not copied correctly. This issue might be associated with the formatting of the data types."
"Security is an issue."
"We experience latency at times when there is a lot of data being processed."
"The performance is not always the best."
"If you have a lot of data and you want to perform computations on it, you will have problems and the performance will be degraded."
"The stability of the solution should be improved in the next release. Sometimes it is great, sometimes it is troublesome. I would also like data conversion and the code pages to be a bit more straightforward."
"I would appreciate a dark theme for SQL Server Management Studio and ability to add databases with TDE enabled into availability groups."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"With recent releases, the Standard Edition (cheaper) SKU has some of the earlier version Enterprise features. SQL Express has some limitations."
"We purchased our license and the pricing is fine for us."
"It is something we have been using for a lot of years. If we're paying, it should be reasonable."
"The price for the Standard Edition is approximately $3,000 USD per core. Once you include technical support, SQL Server is cheaper than PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"There is an annual license and it is priced reasonably."
"The free version is cumbersome to use and maintain. But $5000 for a licence is more expense than the benefit I would get from a licensed version. A licence might be worth the price to simplify management and speed up searches."
"The SQL server is affordable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"We pay approximately $12,000 USD per month for both the server and the license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
32%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
40%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
4%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise118
 

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.
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora Serverless vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.