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Amazon Aurora vs Citus Data 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
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) (6th)
Citus Data
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.2%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citus Data is 2.1%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Aurora3.2%
Citus Data2.1%
Other94.7%
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.
Arucy Lionel - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder at Afriziki
Efficiently handles high-traffic scenarios and compatible with PostgreSQL extensions, offering flexibility in database management
There are many areas of improvement , especially in terms of DDL query routing. Even though it's masterless, DDL queries need to be sent to the coordinator node. Also, setting up a multi-node environment could be more straightforward. Currently, setting up a multi-node environment is challenging. It's a bit tricky. Installation on each PostgreSQL node can lead to communication issues between nodes. An automatic rebalancing feature would be a significant improvement. Currently, I have to manually command the rebalance. It would be more convenient if it was rebalanced automatically. The dashboard and monitoring capabilities are good, but it would be helpful to have an integrated availability dashboard.

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."
"One of the most valuable features is storage scaling."
"The migration process to Amazon Aurora is the best part; it's one of its key strengths, as we hardly had any hiccups during migration, which was very smooth and pretty straightforward given our data was mostly in English."
"We have seen an increase in customer satisfaction and availability with the switch from RDS to Aurora."
"The main benefits my company receives from Amazon Aurora are performance and cost."
"Aurora is the best service within AWS products for our needs."
"The provision of custom read and write endpoints eliminates the need for managing a separate proxy load balancer."
"Another advantage is that with AWS handling administration, responsibilities like database provisioning and maintenance are significantly reduced."
"The solution is competitive with Mongo, MySQL, and maybe even Oracle."
"It's very straightforward to implement the solution. It took us two days to set up everything."
"Its distributed processing capabilities are a standout feature. It requires minimal changes to get up and running if you already have a system on PostgreSQL. Citus can run in its natural state."
"You can use Citus Data to write complex scripts. I like its version upgrades and disaster recovery as well."
 

Cons

"There are tuning challenges. The same methods used for tuning in RDS might not work in Aurora, and some functionalities available in MySQL may not be compatible with Aurora."
"I would like to see performance insights on the database based on the queries. Currently, we use SolarWinds as the monitoring tool. I would like to leverage SolarWinds’ performance insights in AWS services. SolarWinds gives larger insights when we run performance issues."
"I would like to see some tutorials from Amazon for Aurora because I'm too new to it."
"I don't use Amazon Aurora's global database feature; I just use the local feature."
"There is improvement needed to have more developer focus. Additionally, it would be helpful to have a stand-alone solution outside of Amazon. Amazon has a tendency to favor developing web-based clients, which may not always provide the fastest or most responsive solution as desired."
"Amazon can make better access levels and reduce costs for Amazon Aurora."
"I would like to see more AI-related features in future releases."
"The pricing could improve. It should be reduced."
"There are many areas of improvement , especially in terms of DDL query routing. Even though it's masterless, DDL queries need to be sent to the coordinator node. Also, setting up a multi-node environment could be more straightforward."
"More features in monitoring and the reporting could make it better."
"Citus Data needs to improve its stability. Do not consider this product if you have the budget. It is still developing and has a lot of issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool’s pricing depends on the instance type. For cost optimization purposes, we use the result instance category."
"It is quite expensive."
"There is no need to buy a license for the product. We can pay as per the use case."
"The price could be lower compared to its competitors."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"It is an expensive solution."
"Citus Data is an open-source product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
11%
University
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

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.
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Comparisons

 

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Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel
Cloud Flare, Agari, Mix Rank, Heap
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. Citus Data and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.