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Amazon Aurora vs Citus Data 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
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (5th)
Citus Data
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
31st
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 November 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 2.9%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citus Data is 1.9%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Aurora2.9%
Citus Data1.9%
Other95.2%
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

"They now offer some really good scaling and limitless versions that are available to me, which I find very impressive."
"Amazon Aurora stands out for its ease of use in a managed environment, inbuilt security, continuous backups, numerous read replicas, multi-region automated replication, and seamless integration with other AWS services."
"We have seen an increase in customer satisfaction and availability with the switch from RDS to Aurora."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to do multiple-read and single-write. These are the kinds of features that we were interested in, and Aurora takes care of that natively."
"My overall experience with Amazon Aurora is very positive. I rate it ten out of ten for its reliability and efficiency."
"Aurora is a key pillar for us, offering performance and availability."
"Aurora's compatibility with MySQL or PostgreSQL benefited our database management. The migration from on-premise MySQL to Aurora was similar, so we didn't need to change our source code."
"The solution’s scalability is good since we don’t need to take a maintenance window during unpredictable workloads. I like the solution’s behind-the-scenes happenings. It is a great feature."
"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."
"The solution is competitive with Mongo, MySQL, and maybe even Oracle."
"You can use Citus Data to write complex scripts. I like its version upgrades and disaster recovery as well."
"It's very straightforward to implement the solution. It took us two days to set up everything."
 

Cons

"Room for improvement might be in the UI, integrations, or data working capabilities for better user experience."
"In Oracle, tools like Veridata allow for comparing databases and certifying data accuracy, even offering repair capabilities, which are missing in Aurora. There should be a similar comparison tool in Aurora."
"Aurora’s finance aspects could be improved, particularly in reducing the per-hour use cost."
"I would like to see some tutorials from Amazon for Aurora because I'm too new to it."
"Amazon can make better access levels and reduce costs for Amazon Aurora."
"The product's distributed query process for MySQL needs improvement."
"A challenge with stability is the lack of long-term log retention."
"AWS RDS doesn't provide an option to apply one-off patches, which can be critical for business due to unexpected product bugs."
"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."
"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."
"More features in monitoring and the reporting could make it better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is quite expensive."
"The price could be lower compared to its competitors."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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 tool’s pricing depends on the instance type. For cost optimization purposes, we use the result instance category."
"Citus Data is an open-source product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
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.
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Comparisons

 

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Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel
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Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. Citus Data and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.