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Amazon Aurora vs Prisma Postgres

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Amazon Aurora and Prisma Postgres built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Updated 19 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose Amazon Aurora if…

Teams on AWS who want a Postgres or MySQL cluster that can throw off a copy-on-write clone of production in minutes, keep up to fifteen readers behind it, and pause to nothing between bursts in serverless mode.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Prisma Postgres if…

Prisma ORM users who want the database and the client from one vendor, with a pooled connection limit stated per plan rather than left to be discovered.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • Amazon Aurora: You want the upstream database rather than a compatible one, or a branch workflow rather than a clone. AWS documents cloning as a way to build a test environment, not as something you do per pull request.
  • Prisma Postgres: Four separate meters — requests, memory, vCPU and bandwidth — sit on top of the plan fee, so the monthly number is a floor rather than a bill.

3 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Amazon Aurora documentationVisit Prisma Postgres documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionAmazon AuroraPrisma Postgres
Pricing
Free tierYes — capped Free plan plus time-limited creditsYes
Pricing modelPay per use with no plan fee: instances plus storage plus I/O, or ACU-hours in serverless mode. AWS's own worked example prices serverless compute at $0.12 per ACU-hour on Aurora Standard and $0.156 on Aurora I/O-Optimized in US East (N. Virginia) — the difference being whether I/O is metered separately or folded into a higher compute and storage rate. Provisioned instances also offer Reserved Instance pricing, and usage may qualify for Database Savings Plans against a committed hourly spend.A plan fee plus usage: requests, memory GB-hours, active vCPU-hours and outbound bandwidth are each metered — $1 per million requests beyond the allowance, $0.006 per GB-hour, $0.064 per vCPU-hour, $0.025 per GB out.
Data
EngineMySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible. Aurora is AWS's own engine rather than a hosted build of either, so compatibility is the claim being made — existing code, tools and applications are stated to work, which is not the same as being the upstream database.PostgreSQL.
Backup retention1 to 35 days. Unlike an RDS DB instance it cannot be set to 0 — Aurora backs the cluster volume up continuously and there is no way to turn that off.Daily backups with 7-day retention on Starter and Pro, 30 days on Business. The free plan has none.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Pricing model

Amazon Aurora
Pay per use with no plan fee: instances plus storage plus I/O, or ACU-hours in serverless mode. AWS's own worked example prices serverless compute at $0.12 per ACU-hour on Aurora Standard and $0.156 on Aurora I/O-Optimized in US East (N. Virginia) — the difference being whether I/O is metered separately or folded into a higher compute and storage rate. Provisioned instances also offer Reserved Instance pricing, and usage may qualify for Database Savings Plans against a committed hourly spend.
Prisma Postgres
A plan fee plus usage: requests, memory GB-hours, active vCPU-hours and outbound bandwidth are each metered — $1 per million requests beyond the allowance, $0.006 per GB-hour, $0.064 per vCPU-hour, $0.025 per GB out.
Sources (2) →
  • Amazon Aurora pricing — Amazon Web Services ↗

    “Aurora charges for database instances and storage, along with any optional features you choose to enable. Aurora PostgreSQL and Aurora MySQL offer On-Demand and Reserved Instance pricing. [...] We want to calculate the compute costs of running this workload on Aurora serverless with the database cluster configured as Aurora Standard and Aurora I/O-Optimized in US East (N. Virginia). [...] 5 ACUs * $0.12 per ACU-hour * 30/60 hour $0.30 [...] 5 ACUs * $0.156 per ACU-hour * 30/60 hour $0.39”

    Read 2026-09-09 · official pricing

  • Pricing — Prisma ↗

    “5M requests / month, then $1 per million $0.006 per GB-hour memory $0.064 per active vCPU-hours $0.025 per GB outbound bandwidth”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing

Engine

Amazon Aurora
MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible. Aurora is AWS's own engine rather than a hosted build of either, so compatibility is the claim being made — existing code, tools and applications are stated to work, which is not the same as being the upstream database.
Prisma Postgres
PostgreSQL.
Sources (2) →
  • What is Amazon Aurora? — Amazon Aurora User Guide ↗

    “Amazon Aurora (Aurora) is a fully managed relational database engine that's compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. [...] The code, tools, and applications you use today with your existing MySQL and PostgreSQL databases can be used with Aurora.”

    Read 2026-09-09 · official docs

  • Pricing — Prisma ↗

    “Prisma Postgres [...] Managed connection pool Connection limit (pooled)”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official site

Backup retention

Amazon Aurora
1 to 35 days. Unlike an RDS DB instance it cannot be set to 0 — Aurora backs the cluster volume up continuously and there is no way to turn that off.
Prisma Postgres
Daily backups with 7-day retention on Starter and Pro, 30 days on Business. The free plan has none.
Sources (2) →
  • Backing up and restoring an Aurora DB cluster — Amazon Aurora User Guide ↗

    “Aurora backs up your cluster volume automatically and retains restore data for the length of the backup retention period. [...] You can specify a backup retention period from 1–35 days when you create or modify a DB cluster.”

    Read 2026-09-09 · official docs

  • Pricing — Prisma ↗

    “Backups Free — Starter Daily, 7-day retention Pro Daily, 7-day retention Business Daily, 30-day retention”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

Documented by only one.

These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.

Entry paid planPrisma Postgres: $10/month for Starter. Pro is $49 and Business $129, each including a larger request allowance.
Startup credit programPrisma Postgres: Prisma for Startups: database bill covered up to $10,000 for one year, plus 1:1 guidance. Venture-funded track requires pre-seed/seed/Series-A funding raised in the last 12 months and founded in the last 5 years; bootstrapped track requires ≥5k MRR for 6 months and 2 full-time team members.
Storage (entry plan)Prisma Postgres: 500 MB on the free plan across 50 databases. Paid plans raise the database count to 1,000 and beyond.
Managed connection poolingPrisma Postgres: Supported
Scales to zeroAmazon Aurora: Supported — serverless capacity mode only
RegionsAmazon Aurora: 34 AWS regions, the same list for the MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible editions. Counted from the two availability tables in Aurora's own docs, which publish the regions and no total.
Connection limitPrisma Postgres: 100 pooled connections on Starter and 10 direct; 10 pooled on Free, 500 on Pro and 1,000 on Business.
When idlePrisma Postgres: Scales to zero when idle, and Prisma states an idle app costs nothing.
Database branchingAmazon Aurora: Limited — clones, not a branch workflow
Point-in-time recoveryAmazon Aurora: Any point inside the backup retention period, so up to 35 days. Aurora's backups are continuous and incremental against the cluster volume rather than periodic snapshots plus log replay, which is why AWS states no performance impact while they are taken.
Read replicasAmazon Aurora: Supported — 15 per cluster, a quota AWS will not raise
Rewind in placeAmazon Aurora: Limited — Aurora MySQL edition only
ISO 27001Amazon Aurora: Covered under AWS's account-wide ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification — not scoped per-service the way SOC, HIPAA and PCI DSS are on AWS's own site.
HIPAAAmazon Aurora: Listed as a HIPAA-eligible service on AWS's own reference page.
GDPR / data residencyAmazon Aurora: AWS customers can process personal data on all AWS services in compliance with GDPR, and choose the storage type and geographic region for their data.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Should I choose Amazon Aurora or Prisma Postgres?

Pick Amazon Aurora if Teams on AWS who want a Postgres or MySQL cluster that can throw off a copy-on-write clone of production in minutes, keep up to fifteen readers behind it, and pause to nothing between bursts in serverless mode.

Pick Prisma Postgres if Prisma ORM users who want the database and the client from one vendor, with a pooled connection limit stated per plan rather than left to be discovered.

Provider pages

Amazon AuroraAWS relational database engine compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL, built on a shared cluster volume with copy-on-write cloning and a serverless capacity mode.Prisma PostgresServerless Postgres from the Prisma ORM team, billed on requests and compute with a pooled connection limit per plan.

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Every page here is sourced and dated.