Amazon Aurora vs MySQL comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2, while Oracle is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 3.4% mindshare in SQL, compared to Oracle’s 8.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

Amazon Aurora

Read 15 Amazon Aurora reviews

3,317 Views
2,999 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

MySQL

Read 148 MySQL reviews

8,340 Views
6,434 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Amazon Aurora

MySQL

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon Aurora and MySQL based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Relational Databases Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Aurora vs. MySQL Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Aurora vs. MySQL

January 2025

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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

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

MySQL

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

148

Ranking in other categories

Open Source Databases (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.4%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 8.4%, 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

Aws Devops Engineer at LTIMindtree

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.

Read full review

Muzzamil Hussain

Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan

Native encryption ensures secure data management with a simple deployment

The most valuable feature is the on-premises data encryption facilities. By default, we can provide encryption, and this feature in MySQL is why we prefer it over other databases. The native encryption in MySQL encourages us to use this database model more frequently compared to Oracle and other databases. With Oracle, we have to buy another solution for encryption and masking, but MySQL supports native encryption, which enhances our return on investment. It perfectly supports our ROI, and we have no issues with its functionality.

Read full review

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 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."

"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."

"We had better control over the parameters that we could tweak in terms of intermediate storage and better indexing capabilities."

"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."

"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."

"One of the most valuable features is storage 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."

More Amazon Aurora pros

"The easy access to the data and the ability to sort the data with multiple methods are very valuable features."

"Support for enterprise-grade features like clustering, master-slave replication, even Sharding (to some extent) which is an advanced feature."

"The solution is great for small applications in particular."

"The feature that I have found most valuable is its ubiquity. MySQL is everywhere, so if I need to find a developer to do things to it that I don't know, it's very easy to find someone who has expertise in it."

"Fully scalable and stable SQL-based RDBMS, with a straightforward and easy setup."

"It is a scalable solution."

"It is very easy to install and has all basic database features."

"My main reason for using MySQL for this small customer database company and for some kinds of scientific projects was that I had to do the installation myself. I didn't have a database administration team behind me. Therefore, I was looking for something very easy to handle. MySQL is easy to install, connect, and do all such things."

More MySQL pros

Cons

"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."

"I would like to see more AI-related features in future releases."

"It would have been helpful if they had provided some benchmarking numbers."

"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."

"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."

"While Amazon Aurora meets your current scaling and storage needs, there is room for improvement in cryptography and scalability compared to other databases."

"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."

More Amazon Aurora cons

"The licensing cost of the solution is expensive, which MySQL needs to consider improving."

"It would be helpful if there were a graphical user interface to administer, configure, and tune it."

"Could use some additional JSON query support in the solution."

"The solution is expensive."

"The data masking functionality should be improved as well as the native encryption functionality in the MySQL database."

"We require more ease of use, scalability, and high availability. These are some of the critical features that we use and look for in a product. It should be easier to manage clusters. Scalability is very important for us because our projects and concurrency requirements are quite big. We also require high availability of the server, application, and other things. It should also have more performance-based features or enhancements from the performance point of view. When we divide a database, it should be able to handle the queries very fast."

"I would like to have features that allow us to jump between the cloud and our on-premises system."

"I would like to improve the solution’s pricing for licenses."

More MySQL cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is quite expensive."

"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."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The price could be lower compared to its competitors."

"The solution’s pricing depends on customer requirements. A license is not required for the community edition."

"It's cheaper than other solutions."

"We pay a yearly subscription fee."

"I am using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."

"I don't pay for a license."

"MySQL is a cheap solution."

"I use the open-source free community version."

"When you know the setup will continue to grow, make sure you have the paid support."

More MySQL pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Aurora?

AWS is costlier than self-managed solutions, but this includes the managed service experience. Their pricing is fair and reflects the managed service and additional features AWS offers.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Aurora?

AWS RDS doesn't provide an option to apply one-off patches, which can be critical for business due to unexpected product bugs. While self-managed systems allow immediate patch application, RDS has ...

See all answers

Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?

MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...

See all answers

Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?

I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...

See all answers

What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?

One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...

See all answers

Comparisons

SQL Server vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 38% of the time

Oracle Database vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 24% of the time

MariaDB vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 9% of the time

SAP HANA vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 6% of the time

SingleStore vs Amazon Aurora

Compared 2% of the time

More Amazon Aurora Competitors

Firebird SQL vs MySQL

Compared 28% of the time

PostgreSQL vs MySQL

Compared 16% of the time

SAP HANA vs MySQL

Compared 8% of the time

Teradata vs MySQL

Compared 6% of the time

MariaDB vs MySQL

Compared 6% of the time

More MySQL Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Aurora

February 2025

Download Amazon Aurora product report

Buyer's Guide

MySQL

February 2025

Download MySQL product report

Overview

Amazon Aurora is a MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud, that combines the performance and availability of traditional enterprise databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases.

Amazon Aurora is up to five times faster than standard MySQL databases and three times faster than standard PostgreSQL databases. It provides the security, availability, and reliability of commercial databases at 1/10th the cost. Amazon Aurora is fully managed by Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), which automates time-consuming administration tasks like hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups.

Amazon Aurora features a distributed, fault-tolerant, self-healing storage system that auto-scales up to 64TB per database instance. It delivers high performance and availability with up to 15 low-latency read replicas, point-in-time recovery, continuous backup to Amazon S3, and replication across three Availability Zones (AZs).

Visit the Amazon RDS Management Console to create your first Aurora database instance and start migrating your MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

MySQL is a cost-efficient and scalable relational database management system widely used in web, mobile applications, and academic projects.

MySQL is utilized for backend operations, data analysis, reporting, financial transactions, and ERP databases. It supports deployment on local servers, Cloud, and Kubernetes. Its free, open-source nature along with strong community support make it popular among companies. MySQL's compatibility with multiple platforms and programming languages enhances its appeal. While it remains stable and easy to use, areas such as replication, clustering, and backup require improvement to better serve enterprise applications. Enhanced security, error messages, and monitoring tools are also desired for a better user experience.

What are the most important features of MySQL?

Free and Open-Source: No licensing costs, perfect for budget-conscious projects.
Compatibility: Works with multiple platforms and programming languages.
High Performance: Efficient performance across large datasets.
Scalability: Easily scales to meet growing business needs.
Clustering and Replication: Ensures data availability and redundancy.
Easy Installation: Quick setup process on various operating systems.
Community Support: Extensive resources and community assistance.
Cross-Platform: Operates seamlessly on different operating systems.
Data Management Interface: Simplifies data handling and manipulation.

What are the benefits of using MySQL?

Cost Efficiency: Reduce expenses with a free, open-source database.
Scalability: Adapt to increasing data demands effortlessly.
Performance: Handle large datasets with ease and speed.
Community Support: Access a vast pool of knowledge and resources.
Flexibility: Integrate with various platforms and languages for diverse use cases.
Data Reliability: Clustering and replication for high data availability.

In multiple industries, MySQL supports internal applications, billing systems, academic teaching purposes, and ERP databases. Companies leverage MySQL for Cloud and local deployments, ensuring effective data manipulation and backend operations in diverse projects. Its role in financial transactions and reporting further emphasizes its versatility.

Oracle

Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel

Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Aurora vs. MySQL

January 2025

Free Report: Amazon Aurora vs. MySQL

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