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Amazon Aurora vs MySQL 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.0
Users switching to Amazon Aurora reduced costs by 30%, improved performance, and saved $60,000 yearly, enhancing efficiency.
Sentiment score
6.3
MySQL offers cost benefits with open-source use, achieving up to 60% ROI, despite challenges in precise financial calculations.
Using Amazon Aurora has saved us significantly in terms of manpower costs, with nearly fifty percent savings compared to an on-premises solution.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
I have seen a return on investment with MySQL, as it allows us to manage with fewer employees, focusing on business logic rather than database management.
Software Developer at Apptom
Because MySQL is mature and widely used, teams can build features faster, onboard engineers more easily, and resolve issues more quickly compared to less familiar technologies.
Senior Software Developer at NIT
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.6
Amazon Aurora customer service varies, with effective support for high-tier plans but limited help for non-business users.
Sentiment score
6.8
MySQL users primarily rely on community resources for support, with official Oracle support noted as costly but effective.
Technical support from Amazon is rated very highly.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
The initial support could improve by having engineers familiarize themselves with the issue content to provide more specialized assistance from the start.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
I would rate the documentation and online support a 10 out of 10.
Student at a university with 10,001+ employees
We have no issues and usually receive timely responses.
Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan
The documentation, community, and available expertise around MySQL are among the strongest I have worked with.
Senior Software Developer at NIT
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Amazon Aurora's exceptional scalability effortlessly handles large data volumes, ensuring high performance and growth with minimal operational disruptions.
Sentiment score
6.7
MySQL scalability depends on the specific environment, with challenges arising in larger applications and benefits from cloud solutions.
This scalability is critical as it allows for runtime expansion, which is essential for businesses moving from on-premises to the cloud.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
Regarding scalability and the ability to scale, I would give it a 9.5 out of ten.
Principal Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Meeting scalability requirements through cloud computing is an expensive affair.
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Overall, I would say MySQL scales very well for enterprise transaction systems.
Senior Software Developer at NIT
MySQL's scalability is currently adequate, as we have increased operations from ten thousand to twelve thousand devices, and it is working fine for us.
Software Developer at Apptom
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Amazon Aurora is stable and reliable, with high user ratings and effective management of MySQL and PostgreSQL availability.
Sentiment score
7.8
MySQL is generally stable and reliable but faces issues with large data operations and server overload, needing regular maintenance.
It offers a stable environment, ensuring consistent performance.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
I would rate the stability of Amazon Aurora as a nine out of ten.
Principal Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We face certain integration issues, especially when we integrate the database with security solutions like IBM QRadar.
Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan
I have used it for business-critical systems involving payments and refunds, and it performed very well.
Senior Software Developer at NIT
From my experience, MySQL was pretty stable.
Student at a university with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon Aurora needs improved pricing, performance, scalability, developer features, documentation, compatibility, integration, and regular updates for user satisfaction.
MySQL needs improved scalability, performance, integration, replication, user interface, security, monitoring tools, documentation, backup, and clustering.
There are technical challenges, such as the inability to provision the database using a PostgreSQL snapshot directly.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
Keeping extensions up-to-date with PostgreSQL releases would enhance Aurora's functionality.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
A cost reduction would support multiple teams to adopt this solution since the cost is currently higher.
Principal Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It could be more beneficial if MySQL can enhance its data masking functionality in the same way it has improved data encryption.
Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan
Oracle could improve on scalability.
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation.
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
 

Setup Cost

Amazon Aurora's pricing is justified by its speed and features, with costs based on memory, storage, and usage.
MySQL's free community edition is popular, while the paid Enterprise edition offers advanced features and lower costs than competitors.
The pricing is reasonable and not overly expensive.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
Amazon Aurora is not very expensive as other solutions with similar features from other vendors come at almost the same cost.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
The pricing for Amazon Aurora is different from DocumentDB because DocumentDB is cheaper.
Data & Solution Archtect at Enkel
Oracle has different components, so if you need security, you have to procure a different license, but here everything is inbuilt and it's not costly.
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
MySQL has generally been cost-effective due to its open-source ecosystem, mature tooling, and relatively low barrier to adoption compared to many commercial database solutions.
Senior Software Developer at NIT
 

Valuable Features

Amazon Aurora offers high performance, auto-scaling, AWS integration, with MySQL/PostgreSQL compatibility and managed architecture for efficient database management.
MySQL offers fast performance, open-source adaptability, reliability, scalability, and excels in web applications with strong community support.
Amazon Aurora offers a 99.9% SLA compared to PostgreSQL. This ensures a high level of availability for our applications.
Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA
It replicates data across multiple Availability Zones, ensuring high availability and geographical redundancy, which can be considered a GR instead of a DR.
Associate Vice President - Database Management (Principal Solutions Architect) at Northbay
The functions I have found most valuable in Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL are features that are not available in normal RDS PostgreSQL, particularly for scaling and restoration purposes in the event of failure.
Principal Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
With Oracle, we have to buy another solution for encryption and masking, but MySQL supports native encryption, which enhances our return on investment.
Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan
The main feature we utilize in MySQL is the view, and I can say that it is the most valuable feature for our needs.
Software Developer at Apptom
MySQL stands out compared to many NoSQL solutions with its combination of strong consistency, mature relational modeling, and a powerful query language.
Senior Software Developer at NIT
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Aurora
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (6th)
MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.2%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 6.2%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MySQL6.2%
Amazon Aurora3.2%
Other90.6%
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.
Varuns Ug - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Developer at NIT
Reliable transactions have supported secure payments, refunds, and bookings at high volumes
Regarding MySQL improvements, a pain point is horizontal scalability. MySQL scales very well vertically and can support read replicas, but as a system grows significantly, sharding and distributed data management can become complex compared to databases that are designed to scale horizontally from the beginning. This is one of the areas where I think MySQL should work more. Another area is handling very large analytic workloads. MySQL is excellent for transactional systems, but for large-scale analytics or reporting, specialized analytic databases may sometimes be a better fit. Apart from that, one area is performance troubleshooting. As the database grows, diagnosing things such as slow queries, lock contention, and deadlocks becomes complex.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
University
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise63
 

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.
Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel
Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.