Amazon Aurora vs SQL Server 2014 Express comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cognosys Inc Hardened Images are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.6, while Cognosys Inc Hardened Images is ranked #30 with an average rating of 7.0. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cognosys Inc Hardened Images users who would recommend it.

Amazon Aurora

Read 20 Amazon Aurora reviews

1,591 Views
1,543 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SQL Server 2014 Express

Read 2 SQL Server 2014 Express reviews

176 Views
60 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon Aurora

SQL Server 2014 Express

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon Aurora and SQL Server 2014 Express based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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January 2026

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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

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th)

SQL Server 2014 Express

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

30th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

High availability and operational efficiency achieved with reliable managed services

We have primarily used Amazon Aurora for handling our databases. We migrated from PostgreSQL to Amazon Aurora about a year ago. It serves as a customized PostgreSQL database that we utilize Amazon Aurora offers a 99.9% SLA compared to PostgreSQL. This ensures a high level of availability for our…

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Rajneesh Prajapati

Senior Rpa Consultant at Accely Consulting

Reliable data storage has boosted automation logs and now needs fewer limits for growing workloads

The best features SQL Server 2014 Express offers are that it is free and reliable. The biggest advantage is that it is free and very stable, which makes it ideal for small scale and non-critical workloads. It integrates easily with .NET applications, automation tools, and reporting solutions. Setting up the installation and basic configuration is straightforward even for a small team. The integration with .NET applications and automation tools helps my team and projects by allowing me to record and store large amounts of data quickly. It processes very fast, stores very fast, reads the data, searches the data, and executes queries very quickly. However, in Excel, it does not work when the data is large. SQL Server 2014 Express has impacted my organization positively because it is time-saving. When I try to read Excel with a large amount of data, it is slow and sometimes it does not open because there is a lot of data. Sometimes Excel crashes. When I use SQL Server 2014 Express, it is very quick and time-saving, properly visible, and I can track where the data is breaking. It is reliable and cost-efficient for small use cases, but scalability and feature limitations prevent a higher rating.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We had better control over the parameters that we could tweak in terms of intermediate storage and better indexing capabilities."

"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."

"Amazon Aurora's best features are about scaling up and scaling down, which is perfect."

"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."

"They now offer some really good scaling and limitless versions that are available to me, which I find very impressive."

"Aurora is a key pillar for us, offering performance and availability."

"The provision of custom read and write endpoints eliminates the need for managing a separate proxy load balancer."

"Amazon Aurora is built on community databases and AWS has added additional features to it, allowing customers to have enterprise-level features at a lower cost."

More Amazon Aurora pros

"SQL Server 2014 Express has impacted my organization positively because it is time-saving."

"SQL Server 2014 Express has positively impacted my organization by improving my knowledge in SQL coding and making my work faster."

Cons

"I would like to see more AI-related features in future releases."

"The product's distributed query process for MySQL needs improvement."

"There are tuning challenges."

"It would have been helpful if they had provided some benchmarking numbers."

"Room for improvement might be in the UI, integrations, or data working capabilities for better user experience."

"The pricing could improve. It should be reduced."

"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."

"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."

More Amazon Aurora cons

"SQL Server 2014 Express can be improved as there are some resource limits. There are limitations on database size, memory, and CPU usage which restrict scalability."

"SQL Server 2014 Express can be improved by increasing the maximum 10 gigabytes for a database, as it would be better if this limit were increased."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be lower compared to its competitors."

"It is quite expensive."

"It is an expensive solution."

"There is no need to buy a license for the product. We can pay as per the use case."

"The tool’s pricing depends on the instance type. For cost optimization purposes, we use the result instance category."

"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

University

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	13

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Aurora?

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.

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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. ...

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What needs improvement with Amazon Aurora?

I would like to see some tutorials from Amazon for Aurora because I'm too new to it. I believe Amazon can make more tutorials for the product since there's a lot of reading required, and a short tu...

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What needs improvement with SQL Server 2014 Express?

SQL Server 2014 Express can be improved by increasing the maximum 10 gigabytes for a database, as it would be better if this limit were increased.

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What is your primary use case for SQL Server 2014 Express?

My main use case for SQL Server 2014 Express is querying with SQL code. I use SQL Server 2014 Express in my work for analyzing the data set, so I can learn how to use SQL code and how to correctly ...

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What advice do you have for others considering SQL Server 2014 Express?

The advice I would give to others looking into using SQL Server 2014 Express is to be careful about the size of the database. I would rate this product a 7.

See all answers

Comparisons

YugabyteDB vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 14% of the time

SQL Server vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Database vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 12% of the time

CockroachDB vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 10% of the time

MariaDB vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 8% of the time

More Amazon Aurora Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Aurora

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Relational Databases Tools

January 2026

Download SQL Server 2014 Express product report

Overview

Amazon Aurora is a MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud, that combines the performance and availability of traditional enterprise databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases.

Amazon Aurora is up to five times faster than standard MySQL databases and three times faster than standard PostgreSQL databases. It provides the security, availability, and reliability of commercial databases at 1/10th the cost. Amazon Aurora is fully managed by Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), which automates time-consuming administration tasks like hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups.

Amazon Aurora features a distributed, fault-tolerant, self-healing storage system that auto-scales up to 64TB per database instance. It delivers high performance and availability with up to 15 low-latency read replicas, point-in-time recovery, continuous backup to Amazon S3, and replication across three Availability Zones (AZs).

Visit the Amazon RDS Management Console to create your first Aurora database instance and start migrating your MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

SQL Server 2014 Express is a free, feature-rich database that provides capabilities for lightweight data-driven applications. It offers seamless integration, making it ideal for developers who need a reliable and manageable environment.

Designed for small-scale applications, SQL Server 2014 Express delivers a robust platform for developers. Its architecture supports efficient data management and application development without additional costs. With features like advanced security and scalability, it caters to complex needs with ease, providing tools for data storage and dynamic application growth.

What are the key features of SQL Server 2014 Express?

Advanced Security: Ensures data integrity with strong authentication and authorization.
Data Scalability: Efficiently handles growing amounts of data without compromising performance.
Full-Text Search: Provides powerful search capabilities within text data.
Integration Services: Simplifies data transformation and importing tasks.

Why should users review SQL Server 2014 Express?

Cost-Effectiveness: Offers substantial features at no cost, reducing operational expenses.
Performance: Optimized for quick data retrieval and processing, enhancing application speed.
Manageability: Provides simple configuration and management tools.
Reliability: Ensures consistent data availability and uptime.

SQL Server 2014 Express is widely implemented across industries like retail and healthcare, where reliable, scalable data management systems are essential. Its support for application development and data handling helps businesses innovate efficiently and maintain competitive operations.

Cognosys Inc Hardened Images

Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel

Information Not Available

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January 2026

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