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Amazon Aurora vs Amazon Aurora Serverless comparison

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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
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (5th)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Aurora Serverless is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Aurora3.0%
Amazon Aurora Serverless1.2%
Other95.8%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SivashankarRajaram - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Cloud database has delivered high performance and cost savings for data recovery and growth
Amazon can make better access levels and reduce costs for Amazon Aurora. A cost reduction would support multiple teams to adopt this solution since the cost is currently higher. Comparatively, we have the feature of scaling and everything we need. If you launch PostgreSQL on-premises, you need to have a separate DBA for maintenance and everything. If Amazon reduces the cost of Amazon Aurora, it would support large team adoption. A great feature to see in the next version of Amazon Aurora would be improvements in vectorization. In our PostgreSQL, we have pg_vector that helps with vectorizing many of the tables and that is used for data science projects. If Amazon improves this vectorization, it would be much more useful for data science and AI projects.
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon Aurora's best features are about scaling up and scaling down, which is perfect."
"My overall experience with Amazon Aurora is very positive. I rate it ten out of ten for its reliability and efficiency."
"Another advantage is that with AWS handling administration, responsibilities like database provisioning and maintenance are significantly reduced."
"We had better control over the parameters that we could tweak in terms of intermediate storage and better indexing capabilities."
"Aurora's features that I find the most beneficial include its database backup strategy, performance options, and input-output operations."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon Aurora is SQL standardization, it doesn't have its own syntax which is good. It has a lot of hands-off self-management type of activities, such as log rolling and auto-scaling."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Aurora include the global instance with the global writer endpoint, which allows failovers and instance switches without requiring changes in my code, thanks to the default global Route 53 endpoint."
"We have seen an increase in customer satisfaction and availability with the switch from RDS to Aurora."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"I would like to see some tutorials from Amazon for Aurora because I'm too new to it."
"The product's distributed query process for MySQL needs improvement."
"Amazon Aurora should upgrade its base PostgreSQL versions more frequently and offer all PostgreSQL extensions."
"I would like to see more AI-related features in future releases."
"I don't use Amazon Aurora's global database feature; I just use the local feature."
"It is a bit costly. The features are quite good, and I wouldn't say it requires any technical improvements. But from a cost perspective, some clients wouldn't go for Aurora because of that."
"Aurora’s finance aspects could be improved, particularly in reducing the per-hour use cost."
"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."
"Aurora could improve its affordability, as it is currently considered a bit expensive."
"Amazon Aurora Serverless could benefit from a few more security features, particularly in terms of its accessibility."
"Amazon Aurora could improve its detailed monitoring, especially in CloudWatch, to provide more precise query level insights."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no need to buy a license for the product. We can pay as per the use case."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The price could be lower compared to its competitors."
"The tool’s pricing depends on the instance type. For cost optimization purposes, we use the result instance category."
"It is an expensive solution."
"It is quite expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
12%
Healthcare Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
28%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Amazon can make better access levels and reduce costs for Amazon Aurora. A cost reduction would support multiple teams to adopt this solution since the cost is currently higher. Comparatively, we h...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Aurora?
Amazon Aurora is a service provided by AWS, and we received support from AWS for our implementation. The direction we are moving toward is specifically Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL.
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. Amazon Aurora Serverless and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.