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Amazon Aurora vs MariaDB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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
6.6
Number of Reviews
17
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 March 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.3%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 7.2%, down from 9.2% 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

"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."
"We had better control over the parameters that we could tweak in terms of intermediate storage and better indexing capabilities."
"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."
"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."
"Aurora's features that I find the most beneficial include its database backup strategy, performance options, and input-output operations."
"One of the most valuable features is storage scaling."
"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."
"Visual Studio offers unit testing integration and extensive searching capabilities."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is a cloud-based tool, so it is pretty fast."
"The documentation is quite straightforward."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source product and offers its users great online community support."
"It is an absolutely stable solution."
"The performance is very good."
"I would say that for most use cases it works fine."
"It is very simple to install, and the commands are exactly the same as MySQL."
 

Cons

"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."
"Room for improvement might be in the UI, integrations, or data working capabilities for better user experience."
"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."
"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."
"While Amazon Aurora meets your current scaling and storage needs, there is room for improvement in cryptography and scalability compared to other databases."
"In Oracle, tools like Veridata allow for comparing databases and certifying data accuracy, even offering repair capabilities, which are missing in Aurora. There should be a similar comparison tool in Aurora."
"The pricing could improve. It should be reduced."
"The product's distributed query process for MySQL needs improvement."
"A well-known issue for a lot of different users is associated with write-intensive applications."
"The customer service and support are okay. But the response time is slow. Moreover, the material is not available freely."
"The product needs more features and more functionality. It's imperative that it supports more platforms, and supports more operating systems."
"I'd like to see improved materialized views, like the ability to save select queries. This feature is missing in MariaDB compared to other relational databases like Oracle and SQL Server."
"It's not very stable. It needs improvement."
"When we have had issues with accidental computer shutdown or a power outage, our MariaDB database was corrupted."
"The difficult part related to the product stems not from the tool itself but is related to learning how to implement the product in the right way without creating any wrong configuration that could cause security issues or performance issues."
"There could be a command-line prompt for repairing the database and fixing indexes, similar to what was available in the old MyISAM storage engine."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution."
"It is quite expensive."
"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."
"There is no need to buy a license for the product. We can pay as per the use case."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The product is not expensive."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price since there are some support costs involved, even though it isn't an open-source solution."
"MariaDB is open-source and self-hosted."
"It is an open-source solution."
"We use the solution's free version."
"This is an open source solution with no licensing fees."
"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."
"MariaDB is a free-to-use solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
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 pricing for Amazon Aurora is nearly the same as RDS, with Aurora offering additional functionalities. This makes the product cost-effective.
What needs improvement with Amazon Aurora?
There are tuning challenges. The same methods used for tuning in RDS might not work in Aurora, and some functionalities available in MySQL may not be compatible with Aurora. There's also a concern ...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

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: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.