Amazon Aurora vs Amazon RDS

AWS's database that makes you feel fancy without the price tag of Oracle, but still costs more than your rent meets managed databases for people who'd rather not manage databases. Here's our take.

Amazon Aurora

Nice Pick

AWS's database that makes you feel fancy without the price tag of Oracle, but still costs more than your rent.

Pros

• Fully managed with automatic scaling, backups, and patching
• Up to 5x MySQL and 3x PostgreSQL performance with cloud-optimized storage
• High availability and durability through multi-AZ replication
• MySQL and PostgreSQL compatibility for easy migration

Cons

• Can get expensive quickly with scaling and I/O costs
• Vendor lock-in to AWS ecosystem
• Limited to AWS regions, which might affect latency for global apps

Amazon RDS

Managed databases for people who'd rather not manage databases. It's like having a DBA on retainer, but cheaper and less opinionated.

Pros

• Automates backups, patching, and scaling, so you can focus on your app instead of babysitting servers
• Supports multiple engines like PostgreSQL and MySQL, making it easy to switch or standardize
• Built-in high availability with Multi-AZ deployments, because downtime is for amateurs

Cons

• Costs can sneak up on you with instance sizes and storage, especially if you forget to turn things off
• Limited control over the underlying OS and some database settings, which can be frustrating for power users

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Amazon Aurora is a databases while Amazon RDS is a hosting & deployment. We picked Amazon Aurora based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Amazon Aurora wins

Based on overall popularity. Amazon Aurora is more widely used, but Amazon RDS excels in its own space.