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Amazon Aurora vs CockroachDB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Aurora
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CockroachDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.7%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CockroachDB is 3.0%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Julius Mboya - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2024
Offers features for day-to-day management of large-scale databases
There should be constant changes, which can be challenging to keep up with annually. The UAE evolves rapidly, and after just a two-month break, you might find that things have shifted around. It would be helpful to have a more structured way of introducing these changes. I like how Microsoft does it with Patch, where you know to expect updates regularly. If AWS implemented something similar, the update pattern would be more predictable. The only database issue we encountered was when we were using a read replica for both read and write operations. This sometimes caused the database to be slow, likely because the read queries weren’t optimized. However, the issue was resolved once we split the read and write operations into separate replicas, and everything has been smooth since then.
Antonio Tringali - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 15, 2023
Open source with extensive documentation and a University for training
I am a freelancer. A client of mine wanted a solution that would allow them to scale yet not abandon the familiar PostgreSQL front-end (and rewrite a part of their source code). Scalability aside, CockroachDB is a fine way forward from PostgreSQL and is not changing the client source code part of the system. If you are lucky and you do not use newer features from recent versions of PostgreSQL or PostgreSQL extensions, it's fine. There are nice-to-have features for big organizations like regional tables. At the moment, my client simply does not use these. However, the serverless offer from CockroachDB is reacting well as data grows.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that the maintainability is offloaded to the service provider. I don't have to maintain a database or do any administrative tasks, which comes in handy."
"The provision of custom read and write endpoints eliminates the need for managing a separate proxy load balancer."
"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."
"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 had better control over the parameters that we could tweak in terms of intermediate storage and better indexing capabilities."
"The product has valuable security features."
"The availability and the easy to use feature is the most valuable. The documentation is also good."
"I use CockroachDB to test big data samples and to create the best structure for databases. We have four users and required 10 people for deployment and maintenance."
"The subset of SQL that my client is using is completely supported."
"The initial setup and deployment are simple."
"CockroachDB is highly reliable."
"The best feature of CockroachDB is the ability to keep the nodes in different locations."
"What I like best is its ability to solve data residency issues. The main advantage is auto geo partitioning, built into the product. This means we don't have to spin up separate servers in each region, which would be much more costly."
 

Cons

"There is improvement needed to have more developer focus. Additionally, it would be helpful to have a stand-alone solution outside of Amazon. Amazon has a tendency to favor developing web-based clients, which may not always provide the fastest or most responsive solution as desired."
"I would like to see more AI-related features in future releases."
"It would have been helpful if they had provided some benchmarking numbers."
"The pricing could improve. It should be reduced."
"The product's distributed query process for MySQL needs improvement."
"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."
"It is a bit costly. The features are quite good, and I wouldn't say it requires any technical improvements. But from a cost perspective, some clients wouldn't go for Aurora because of that."
"While Amazon Aurora meets your current scaling and storage needs, there is room for improvement in cryptography and scalability compared to other databases."
"The closer they can make CockroachDB to being completely compatible with Postgres, the better. It's almost compatible, but not completely. If it was, it would be nice to just be able to use Postgres libraries without any fiddling."
"I think the engine itself could be improved. If you miss a partition key, it should be able to be modeled. This is where AI could be really helpful. For example, if a user is from Australia, the system should know to look for their data there first instead of searching in the US or another continent."
"CockroachDB needs to improve store processes."
"The platform could be more extensible."
"I find the serverless offer a bit confusing."
"We are looking for more features to support distributed high availability and geo-partitioning."
"The initial setup and pricing could be improved."
"Cockroach does not support all types of protocols. I need to improve it myself to support a CouchDB on my network."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is quite expensive."
"It is an expensive solution."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"There is no need to buy a license for the product. We can pay as per the use case."
"The price could be lower compared to its competitors."
"The tool’s pricing depends on the instance type. For cost optimization purposes, we use the result instance category."
"I've used CockroachDB at a small scale on the free accounts because we are only testing."
"The platform is affordable even for the enterprise version. It provides value for investment in terms of performance."
"The product's price depends on the user's company and the contract model they enter into with CockroachDB. Depending on the contract model one enters into with CockroachDB, the product may or may not be expensive."
"The pricing is good but can be made cheaper. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution's pricing is not cheap. However, the good thing is that customers are willing to pay for it if they want it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
5%
University
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What needs improvement with Amazon Aurora?
There should be constant changes, which can be challenging to keep up with annually. The UAE evolves rapidly, and after just a two-month break, you might find that things have shifted around. It wo...
What do you like most about CockroachDB?
The subset of SQL that my client is using is completely supported.
What needs improvement with CockroachDB?
I think the engine itself could be improved. If you miss a partition key, it should be able to be modeled. This is where AI could be really helpful. For example, if a user is from Australia, the sy...
What is your primary use case for CockroachDB?
Cockroach nodes were installed in the following: 1. Single host, triple nodes (containers): for evaluation on a low-end PC. 2. Single host, triple nodes (process): to test applications against a ~5...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel
Baidu, Kindred, Tierion, Heroic Labs, Gorgias
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. CockroachDB and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.