# Amazon Aurora Reviews **Vendor:** Amazon Web Services (AWS) **Category:** [Relational Databases](https://www.g2.com/categories/relational-databases) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 457 ## About Amazon Aurora Amazon Aurora is a fully managed relational database service that combines the performance and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open-source databases. Compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL, Aurora delivers up to five times the throughput of standard MySQL databases and up to three times that of standard PostgreSQL databases. It is designed for high availability, offering up to 99.99% availability within a single region and up to 99.999% across multiple regions. Aurora's architecture includes a distributed, fault-tolerant storage system that automatically scales up to 128 tebibytes, ensuring continuous data access and durability. Additionally, Aurora provides serverless configurations, allowing automatic scaling based on application needs, and integrates seamlessly with other AWS services for machine learning and analytics. Key Features and Functionality: - High Performance: Delivers up to five times the throughput of MySQL and three times that of PostgreSQL, enabling efficient handling of demanding workloads. - High Availability: Designed for up to 99.99% availability within a single region and up to 99.999% across multiple regions, ensuring continuous data access. - Scalability: Automatically scales storage up to 128 tebibytes and supports up to 15 read replicas for read-intensive applications. - Serverless Configuration: Offers Aurora Serverless, which automatically adjusts capacity based on application demand, eliminating the need for manual provisioning. - Machine Learning Integration: Integrates with Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Comprehend, allowing for in-database machine learning capabilities without data movement. - Security: Provides multiple layers of security, including network isolation, encryption at rest and in transit, and compliance with various industry standards. Primary Value and Solutions Provided: Amazon Aurora addresses the need for a high-performance, highly available, and scalable relational database service that is cost-effective and easy to manage. By offering compatibility with MySQL and PostgreSQL, it allows organizations to migrate existing applications without significant code changes. Aurora's automatic scaling and serverless options cater to applications with variable workloads, reducing operational overhead and costs. Its integration with AWS machine learning services enables real-time analytics and predictive capabilities directly within the database, enhancing application functionality. Overall, Aurora simplifies database management while delivering enterprise-grade performance and reliability. ## Amazon Aurora Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **auto-scaling and high performance** of Amazon Aurora, seamlessly handling varied workloads effortlessly. (14 reviews) - Users appreciate the **high availability** of Amazon Aurora, enjoying seamless performance and effortless management across multiple AZs. (12 reviews) - Users value the **ease of use** of Amazon Aurora, appreciating its user-friendly interface and seamless management capabilities. (12 reviews) - Users highlight the **impressive performance and scalability** of Amazon Aurora, enhancing stability and speed for heavy jobs. (12 reviews) - Users value the **high availability** of Amazon Aurora, appreciating its seamless management and performance during heavy workloads. (10 reviews) - Users commend Amazon Aurora for its **exceptional reliability** , allowing them to trust their database for critical applications. (10 reviews) - Users appreciate the **exceptional speed and scalability** of Amazon Aurora, enhancing application responsiveness and performance. (9 reviews) - Easy Integrations (8 reviews) - Integrations (7 reviews) - Customer Support (6 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **cost of Amazon Aurora** to quickly escalate, especially with larger datasets and unexpected storage needs. (20 reviews) - Users experience **dependency on the AWS ecosystem** , which can limit flexibility and integration with external systems. (7 reviews) - Users note **feature limitations** with Aurora, especially when compared to self-managed and other cloud databases. (6 reviews) - Users express concern over **cost issues** with Amazon Aurora, particularly regarding unpredictable expenses with larger datasets. (5 reviews) - Users find the **learning curve challenging** , especially when transitioning from simpler database solutions to Amazon Aurora. (5 reviews) - Users feel disappointed by the **limited database support** in Amazon Aurora, especially for vendors beyond MySQL and PostgreSQL. (5 reviews) - Limited Storage (5 reviews) - Limited Features (4 reviews) - Pricing Confusion (4 reviews) - Users note the **vendor lock-in** with Amazon Aurora, making migrations to other platforms challenging and costly. (4 reviews) ## Amazon Aurora Reviews ### 1. Robust Performance with Cost Challenges **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Atharva P. | Cloud BI Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 14, 2026 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** I like Amazon Aurora's performance, scalability, and reduced operational overhead compared to managing traditional databases manually. It provides a seamless blend of MySQL, Postgres, and SQL compatibility with cloud-native high availability and automation. I use it for production applications where uptime, scalability, and performance are critical. Aurora effectively handles transaction workloads and supports our back-end APIs and microservices, particularly in high availability database environments, which is crucial for our cloud-native application architecture on AWS. **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** Costs can increase significantly for high scale production workloads. It is quite expensive for high scale production workloads, especially with replicas and storage growth. Troubleshooting performance bottlenecks in complex environments can also require deeper AWS expertise. **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** Amazon Aurora solves the challenge of running high-level and scalable relational databases without manually managing backups, failover, and infrastructure maintenance. ### 2. Scalable and Efficient, But Costly **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Igor Z. | Senior DevOps Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2026 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** I like Amazon Aurora because it has less overhead in maintenance compared to regular RDS PG, which means there's less maintenance work for DBAs. The scalability is great, and its integration with other AWS services is seamless, so we need less interaction with infrastructure and less DBA work. Also, the initial setup was not too challenging. **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** Amazon Aurora is too expensive. It's serverless, making it very hard to predict the cost increase. I suggest better dashboards. **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Amazon Aurora for maintaining PG databases with less overhead in maintenance compared to regular RDS PG. It provides scalability and integration with AWS services, which reduces the need for interaction with infrastructure and DBA work. ### 3. Open-Source Compatibility with Enterprise Performance and Auto-Scaling **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ujjal K. | Senior Software Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2026 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** I like the seamless blend of open-source compatibility (PostgresSQL for my case) with enterprise-level performance. The auto-scaling storage and built-in fault tolerance drastically reduce our operational overhead. **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** The biggest downside is cost predictability. THe auto-scaling is convenient, I/O charges and storage costs can add up quickly and unexpectedle if you have poorly optimized queries. It is a premium service, making it overkill, and sometimes too expensive, for smaller, low traffic applications. **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** The primary problem it solves for us is infrastructure management. Before Aurora, managing database replication, backups, and high availability look up way too much engineering time. By automating these tasks, it essentially removes the need for dedicated database administration. Our engineering team can focus 100% on shipping core product features rather than basbysitting database clusters. ### 4. Review for AWS Amazon Aurora **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Harsh S. | Software Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2025 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** Amazon Aurora combines the performance and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open-source databases. I like its auto-scaling, high availability across multiple AZs, compatibility with MySQL/PostgreSQL, and automated backups, which make it easy to manage without worrying about infrastructure overhead. The performance improvements and serverless options are especially helpful for applications that need to scale on demand. **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** The main downside is the pricing model, which can get expensive at scale compared to self-managed databases. Aurora also has some limitations with certain advanced database features that exist in native MySQL/PostgreSQL. Additionally, cross-region replication setup can be complex, and debugging issues sometimes requires AWS support since it’s a managed service with limited visibility into the underlying infrastructure. **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** Amazon Aurora helps solve issues of scalability, availability, and database management overhead. It automatically handles backups, failover, and scaling, which reduces downtime and admin effort, while its compatibility with MySQL/PostgreSQL makes migrations smooth. This results in better performance, cost savings, and more focus on application development instead of infrastructure. ### 5. AWS Databases – Powerful, Feature-Rich, and Easy to Integrate **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ljupcho T. | Microsoft Certified Trainer, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 11, 2025 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** AWS offers a broad selection of managed database services that are widely used across industries for everything from small applications to large-scale enterprise systems. With options like Amazon RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, and more, AWS databases are known for their ease of use and rich feature set. One of the major strengths of AWS databases is how easy they are to implement and integrate into existing AWS-based applications. Setting up a database can often be done in just a few clicks through the AWS Management Console, and integration with other AWS services (like Lambda, EC2, or S3) is seamless. This makes them an ideal choice for developers and DevOps teams looking to move quickly. Amazon Aurora, in particular, stands out for its low-maintenance design and high performance, offering compatibility with both MySQL and PostgreSQL. It automates backups, patching, scaling, and failover, which significantly reduces operational overhead. While AWS databases are frequently used due to their scalability and reliability, users should note that in-depth customer support (such as architectural guidance or 24/7 technical assistance) usually requires a paid support plan. The basic support tier is free but limited. **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** Advanced Support Costs Extra: Deep technical support and fast response times require a paid support plan. Can Be Complex at Scale: While simple to start, large deployments require careful configuration and cost monitoring. Vendor Lock-In Risk: Heavy reliance on AWS-native services may make migration harder later. **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** AWS Databases help us address several critical infrastructure challenges, especially around availability, scalability, and operational efficiency. One of the biggest problems we’ve been able to solve is achieving near-zero downtime for our applications. With features like automated failover, multi-AZ deployments, and continuous backups, we can ensure our services remain online and resilient even during maintenance or unexpected failures. We also benefit significantly from multi-region replication, which allows us to improve performance for global users while maintaining data consistency and disaster recovery readiness. This level of redundancy is hard to achieve with traditional self-managed database setups and would typically require complex custom implementations. Additionally, AWS's managed services reduce the overhead of tasks like patching, scaling, and monitoring, allowing our teams to focus more on development and less on infrastructure management. These capabilities directly contribute to faster delivery times, improved user experience, and stronger business continuity. ### 6. High-Performance, Scalable Database with Great Reliability **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gullipalli A. | Senior Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 17, 2025 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** Amazon Aurora delivers excellent performance and scalability compared to traditional databases. It’s highly reliable with automatic failover, backups, and replication. Integration with other AWS services is seamless, and the pay-as-you-go pricing makes it cost-effective for scaling applications. **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** The pricing can become expensive at scale, especially with large workloads or heavy storage usage. The learning curve for managing advanced configurations may be steep for beginners, and being AWS-specific reduces flexibility if you want to migrate away later **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** Aurora makes it easy to handle high traffic without worrying about downtime or data loss. It takes care of backups, replication, and scaling automatically, so I don’t have to spend time on manual database management. This saves me effort, keeps my apps running smoothly, and lets me focus more on building features instead of fixing database issues. ### 7. Reliable for Long-Running ETL Jobs, Perfect for Nightly Batches **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cun j. | Sr. Consultant, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 18, 2025 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** Long running ETL ELT jobs fail less often than other tool. Good for night batch heavy jobs. **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** Storage grows quietly and cost more than expected when see the bills. **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** The validation scripts keep running even during database failure, it read faster to get results back for large tables. ### 8. Easy DB Maintenance and Automated Backups for a Fault-Tolerant Platform **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 01, 2026 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** The ease of maintaining a DB and automated backup integration helped us greatly in keeping our platform fault tolerant **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** The pricing of the service is a bit on the higher side **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** The use of storing mission critical data and applications needing to interact with the data quickly and to understand the query performance ### 9. Powerful and Flexible, but Cost and Complexity Can Creep In **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 29, 2025 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** Wide Range of Options: From fully managed (RDS, Aurora) to scalable NoSQL (DynamoDB), AWS offers solutions for nearly every use case. High Availability: Built-in features like Multi-AZ, replication, and automatic failover are easy to configure. Performance Tuning Options: Aurora and RDS offer good metrics, auto-scaling, and tuning tools. Security and Compliance: Integration with IAM, KMS, VPC, and auditing tools provides robust enterprise-grade protection. **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** Cost Can Escalate Quickly: Especially with features like provisioned IOPS, backup storage, and cross-region replication. Learning Curve: So many options (RDS vs Aurora vs DynamoDB vs Redshift) can overwhelm new users. Limited Cross-DB Integration: Migrating between engines (e.g., from Aurora MySQL to PostgreSQL) isn't seamless. Vendor Lock-In Risk: Heavily optimized apps can become tightly coupled to AWS-specific features. **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** Sped up development with managed PostgreSQL (RDS) — no DBA required. Handled high-ingest workloads via DynamoDB without worrying about scaling limits. Reduced downtime risks during maintenance thanks to Multi-AZ failover. Streamlined compliance audits using built-in encryption and access logging. ### 10. SOFTWARE AMAZON AURORA REVIEW **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jeffrey K. | VICE PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 16, 2025 **What do you like best about Amazon Aurora?** HELPS CREATE MULTIPLE DATABASES WITH MINIMUAL EFFORT **What do you dislike about Amazon Aurora?** IT HAS LIMITED SUPPORT FOR NON-SQL POSTGRE SQL ENGINES **What problems is Amazon Aurora solving and how is that benefiting you?** PERFECT FOR USING IT WORKLOADS WHERE YOU DON''T NEED YOUR DATABASE RUNNING ALL DAY LONG EVERYDA. WITH AURORA YOU CAN START AND STOP THE DATABASE ON DEMAND AND SAVE COSTS ALSO ## Amazon Aurora Discussions - [What is Amazon Aurora used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-amazon-aurora-used-for) - 2 comments, 1 upvote - [What is Amazon Aurora vs RDS?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-amazon-aurora-vs-rds) - 2 comments - [View Amazon Aurora pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-aurora/reviews/amazon-aurora-review-1438940?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-16+08%3A56%3A11+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=c30db26e-cdbd-4bf7-87f8-4a67854cb087&secure%5Btoken%5D=29b8f0acaa18e1ecfa610573e0936b0b52da4416cd5533f168b2d2eb1fb7b27e&format=llm_user) ## Amazon Aurora Integrations - [Amazon CloudWatch](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-cloudwatch/reviews) - [Amazon ElastiCache](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-elasticache/reviews) - [Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS)](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-elastic-container-service-amazon-ecs/reviews) - [AWS CloudTrail](https://www.g2.com/products/aws-cloudtrail/reviews) - [AWS Lambda](https://www.g2.com/products/aws-lambda/reviews) - [Microsoft SQL Server](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-sql-server/reviews) ## Amazon Aurora Features **Management ** - Data Schema - Query Language - ACID - Complaint - Data Replication **Configuration** - Application Performance - Orchestration - Database Monitoring - Anomaly Detection - Network Security **Support ** - Text Search - Data Types - Languages - Operating Systems **Database Administration** - Provisioning - Governance - Auditing **Security** - Database Locking - Access Control - Encryption - Authentication **Availability** - Scalability - Backup - Archiving - Indexing **Security** - Data Masking - Authentication And Single Sign-On - Data Anonymization **Performance ** - Disaster Recovery - Data Concurrency - Workload Management - Advanced Indexing - Query Optimizer **Data Management** - Data Replication - Advanced Data Analytics **Database Features** - Storage - Availability - Stability - Scalability - Security - Data Manipulation - Query Language ## Top Amazon Aurora Alternatives - [Oracle Database](https://www.g2.com/products/oracle-database/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (927 reviews) - [Google Cloud SQL](https://www.g2.com/products/google-cloud-sql/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (354 reviews) - [Azure SQL Database](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-sql-database/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (230 reviews)