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Amazon Aurora vs MariaDB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MariaDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.6%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 7.9%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rajitha Jatothu - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve high performance with fault-tolerant and highly available database management
Aurora is a key pillar for us, offering performance and availability. It is faster than RDS and supports multi-region clusters and scalability. One feature we value is Aurora's ability to provide a reader endpoint, allowing applications to connect without tracking replicas. It supports auto-scaling and offers several options for monitoring and optimizing database performance. Aurora's fault tolerance and ability to handle multiple replicas contribute to its reliability and high performance.
KumarManish - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products
We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Aurora's features that I find the most beneficial include its database backup strategy, performance options, and input-output operations."
"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 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."
"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 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 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 provision of custom read and write endpoints eliminates the need for managing a separate proxy load balancer."
"It delivers fast processing times, particularly for frequent select queries and insert/update operations."
"It is a scalable solution. It easily scales up and scales down."
"MariaDB performs well as the backend database for our cloud-based telephony solution."
"A valuable feature is that we can use it for quite a few things, all the things you'd expect from a server—along the lines of Linux's Lightweight Directory."
"Great monitoring and performance stability."
"We use MariaDB for identity provider services. Most of the things that we are doing are deployed in the container mode. All such solutions require a database, and MariaDB is easier to use for these kinds of deployments."
"The most valuable feature of MariaDB is that it is open-source and we can easily migrate from other databases, such as Oracle to MariaDB."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the query speed it offers."
 

Cons

"It would have been helpful if they had provided some benchmarking numbers."
"The product's distributed query process for MySQL needs improvement."
"The pricing could improve. It should be reduced."
"I would like to see more AI-related features in future releases."
"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."
"Room for improvement might be in the UI, integrations, or data working capabilities for better user experience."
"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."
"MariaDB's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The performance could be a bit better."
"There is room for improvement in terms of security."
"The interface should be more user-friendly. It should be able to connect directly to the database and Interact with it without having to use commands. It needs better integration."
"The solution should do some fine-tuning on maybe the transaction per second so that users can get more than they can on the Microsoft SQL Server."
"The GUI could be improved a bit. The user interface needs to be improved."
"The scaling for database online transactions needs improvement."
"When we have had issues with accidental computer shutdown or a power outage, our MariaDB database was corrupted."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"It is quite expensive."
"It is an open-source solution."
"MariaDB is available for free."
"MariaDB is open-source and self-hosted."
"This is an open source solution with no licensing fees."
"MariaDB is an open-source software, meaning I don't need to pay for the product."
"MariaDB is a free-to-use solution."
"The licensing cost is approximately $4000.00 per year and the licensing is based on the software and the number of posts that you make."
"It is free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Aurora?
The price of Aurora is generally reasonable. It fluctuates based on performance levels and usage, yet maintains a good balance with our operational demands.
What needs improvement with Amazon Aurora?
Currently, I am unsure what aspects of Aurora require improvement. The solution meets our needs in terms of high availability, durability, and backups. However, room for improvement might be in the...
What do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
I have found the price of commercial MariaDB to be pretty steep, although not as high as Oracle. Customers often prefer the Community Edition because it's free.
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper.
 

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Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel
Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. MariaDB and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.