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Amazon Aurora vs MySQL 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
MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
147
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (1st)
 

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 MySQL is 8.1%, down from 9.4% 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.
Patryk Golabek - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 5, 2020
Good beginner base but it should have better support for backups
As for what can be improved, right now we don't use the MySQL cluster. There is a MySQL cluster that you can run in a standalone mode, like a single database or you can do it in a cluster master-slave implementation. The cluster is not the best when it comes to MySQL. That's why we switched to MariaDB. For that simple reason that the cluster there is better. It's more manageable and it's easier to work with. We decide what to use depending on the needs. For example, if we need to mount something in a cluster mode, we use MariaDB, which again, is a Dockerized solution with a Helm chart as well, and it's very easy for us to deploy and manage, and also to scale when you just increase the number of slave versions. So MySQL doesn't have that great support when it comes to clusters. You can definitely use MySQL for that too, both support clustering, but the MariaDB is better. Additional features that I would like to see included in the next release of this solution include better support for backups. Because if you go with the MySQL Percona version, it gives you the tools to back it up securely. The vanilla version of MySQL doesn't have that. It actually does have it, but it is just really poorly executed. I would improve the backup system as well as the encryption. To make it smoother right now takes too much work. It should be a little bit smoother to backup the encrypted data the way you want it and have the ability to push it anywhere you want. That is not part of it right now. Now it is a database, so you don't know what you're going to do with it. It's difficult. You're just going to come up with solutions. But I think you can generalize here and come up with really simple solutions, which we have already in MySQL. That's probably the one thing that I would try and push right now for people to switch. But people are still not biting, because if you go with the managed version, then all the backups are taken care of for you by Amazon or Google or Microsoft. Then you really don't care. But for us, since we're doing it locally, self-hosted, we would like to have better tools for locking up the data. Right now, one aspect that is also linked to backups is running things in a crosscheck with semi-managed solutions. This requires a bit of a context. Since we're running things within the clustered communities, we're kind of pushing the Cloud into the cluster. We also want to push some of the tools for the database into a cluster, as well. So these are what we call Kubernetes operators. And there's MySQL operators that were first developed by the community. Those kind give you the ability to backup data within the cluster. So now you have a fully managed solution running from your cluster. These are called MySQL Kubernetes operators. We are looking into those right now to upgrade our solution, which would mean that we can just execute our backup natively within Kubernetes, not via special scripts. This would make it much easier to actually deal with any kind of MySQL issues within the cluster, because it would be cluster-native. That's what the operators are for. I think Oracle just created a really good one. It surprised me that they have this. It's not because of Oracle, but they got pushed by the community and actually created the MySQL Operator for Kubernetes, and that's what we're moving towards. This is going to give you an ability to have a cloud-managed solution within the cluster. And then you can ask the MySQL Operator for the database. They'll partition the database and give it to you. So it will change the nature from you deploying it to you just asking the cluster to give you a database. It's a fully managed solution right from the cluster. So that's what we're heavily looking into right now. We'll be switching to using Kubernetes MySQL Operators. It's a high-availability cluster running within the Kubernetes cluster. Right now we're pretty good with that. It's working fine. We're trying to find some time to actually release that globally everywhere. That's where I am right now. But in terms of technology, if you give up Oracle, you just go to a MySQL operator. That's the one we're using, what we're actually looking at - to create, operate and scale mySQL and sell it within the cluster. This idea of having a cognitive MySQL becomes much easier to manage within the cluster, as well. So you don't have to go with the cloud solution with AWS or Google cloud or Amazon MySQL or the Microsoft version. The Oracle SuperCluster is the Oracle MySQL operator. That's what we we are looking into a lot right now. Mainly because it does backups on demand - it's so easy to backup. You can just tell Kubernetes to backup and you don't have to run special scripts or special extra software or codes to back it up. You can make the backup as you would do anything else. Send a backup or some other data source or insert an Elasticsearch into it here. Just say "Kubernetes, back it up" and you know Oracle has this adapters within the cluster to back it up for you taking increments or different companies. So that makes it really nice and easy to use and to deploy. With that kind of solution you can ask to class or petition the database how you want. So again, it changed the nature of the kind of push-to-pull second nature system. Are you pushing your containers to a cluster? You just say cluster, "give me a database" and the class gives you the base partition database, creates a database in a secure manner, gives the connection to the database, and you're done. Then you can back it up on a schedule on to any backup switches. It's much easier. So once this goes, it is going to be widely adopted, which it should be. But I think people might not have the tech skills right now. But once it's adaptive, maybe in a few more months, it's going to be the number one solution for everybody. In terms of what I'd like to see in the next release, one thing that's always missing is dash boarding. There's no real BI tool for MySQL, like there is in Yellowfin and all the different tools that you get. They all have MySQL connectors, but there's no specific BI tool for MySQL. Open source projects have sprung up, but they're more general purpose, like Postgress, a MySQL kind of database, a relational database. I don't see any really nice tool like Cabana for elastic searches that I can tell clients to use because it would be too technical for them. They would have to have more technical engagement with writing the course, drag and drop, and creating a graph like in Power BI where you just connect with DIA. So I'd like to see the grab and drag and drop tables, nice beautiful graphics, and pie charts. You don't necessarily have that with MySQL like you have other solutions, which are really cost prohibitive for some clients. It'd be nice to have an open source solution for that. Decent solutions. I mean decent that I can take to clients. It's so technical. They want to drag and drop.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The provision of custom read and write endpoints eliminates the need for managing a separate proxy load balancer."
"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."
"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."
"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 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 speed is very good."
"MySQL is a scalable tool. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."
"A good traditional database that supports JSON."
"SKIP LOCKED is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"​The most valuable feature of MySQL is the informative error outputs of command line interface.​"
"This is a lightweight product that is not demanding on the resources, which is what I think gives it the edge."
"It is easy to use. It is simple to implement, which makes it suitable for our projects because we have deadlines. MySQL is also open-source, which is another plus point."
 

Cons

"The product's distributed query process for MySQL needs improvement."
"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."
"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 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."
"The pricing could improve. It should be reduced."
"It would have been helpful if they had provided some benchmarking numbers."
"I would like to see more AI-related features in future releases."
"While Amazon Aurora meets your current scaling and storage needs, there is room for improvement in cryptography and scalability compared to other databases."
"At times, the autoscaling does not happen when there is a surge in load."
"When working with a cluster wide, I have to use the MySQL cluster version."
"Security is a concern. MySQL could have better security features."
"MySQL's performance requires attention. For optimal performance, one should review and sometimes revise the code, particularly when using server-side scripting."
"MySQL's performance needs to be improved for enterprise-level applications compared to Oracle and Postgres."
"They should come up with a better solution than the NDB cluster for better scaling. If they could come up with a better solution for write scaling, apart from the NDB cluster, which is supported by all open source communities, that would be great. Although the NDB cluster, I believe, is an open-source tool, it's not widely supported as a solution."
"Oracle should start putting in some of the enterprise features in the standard feature. There are some key features that should be part of the standard."
"The licensing cost of the solution is expensive, which MySQL needs to consider improving."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool’s pricing depends on the instance type. For cost optimization purposes, we use the result instance category."
"The price could be lower compared to its competitors."
"It is quite expensive."
"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."
"There is no licensing fee."
"We are using the free version of MySQL. We prefer paying for a yearly license."
"Can range from free to quite expensive, depending on the environments and requirements, so better to really set goals ahead of setting it up."
"MySQL Enterprise Support is not cheap, though might still be cheaper than Oracle or SQL Server. They may not have local support depending on where you’re based, but there are many smaller agencies out there that will readily provide support. You’ll need to spend some time looking around."
"The pricing falls within the moderate range."
"We've never bought a commercial license. We just use the open-source community edition."
"There is no cost involved, no licensing fees."
"I use a free version at present."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

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...
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...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.