Amazon Aurora is a fully managed relational database engine that supports MySQL and PostgreSQL, designed to combine the performance of commercial database engines with the cost-effectiveness and simplicity of open-source databases. Aurora includes a high-performance storage subsystem. It also automates and standardizes some of the most challenging aspects of database configuration and administration such as database clustering and replication. Unlike standard RDS operations which may focus on individual database instances, Aurora management usually involves clusters of database servers that maintain synchronization via replication.
This setup facilitates automatic clustering and storage allocation, enhancing the ease and cost-efficiency of operating and scaling large database deployments. Amazon Aurora is generally suitable when you need high performance and scalability for MySQL or PostgreSQL, as it offers significant improvements in speed and allows more read replicas.
Choose Amazon RDS if you need a broader range of database engines or want to maintain a similar environment to existing on-premises databases. Performance Good performance, supports long-running jobs. Scalability Supports up to 5 read replicas; limited database scalability, does not support sharding.
Up to 15 read replicas; enhanced scalability and lower latency. Management Fully managed with seamless integration. Fully managed with cloud-native architecture and serverless options. Backup and Recovery Transaction logs and backups retained for a specified period. High availability across multiple AZs.
Automated backups, supports data recovery up to the last five minutes. Cost Multi-AZ deployments cost extra. One-year free tier available. Generally higher performance can mean higher costs; no free tier. Customization High control over instances type and size.
