# Amazon Aurora vs TigerData

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/amazon-aurora-vs-tigerdata/

Every value below is read from Amazon Aurora's and TigerData's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Amazon Aurora | TigerData |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pricing model | 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. | Compute and storage are billed separately and hourly rather than as one plan price — compute from $30 a month, storage at $0.177 per GB-month, with the headline storage figure resting on an assumed 5x compression ratio. |
| Engine | 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. | PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB, aimed at time-series, real-time analytics and events. A self-managed edition exists for on-prem and private cloud. |
| Point-in-time recovery | 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. | 3 days on Performance, with cross-region backups available for disaster recovery on higher tiers. |
| Read replicas | Supported — 15 per cluster, a quota AWS will not raise | Supported |

## 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. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/pricing/))
- TigerData: Compute and storage are billed separately and hourly rather than as one plan price — compute from $30 a month, storage at $0.177 per GB-month, with the headline storage figure resting on an assumed 5x compression ratio. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/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. ([source](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/CHAP_AuroraOverview.html))
- TigerData: PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB, aimed at time-series, real-time analytics and events. A self-managed edition exists for on-prem and private cloud. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/pricing))

### Point-in-time recovery

- Amazon 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. ([source](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Aurora.Managing.Backups.html))
- TigerData: 3 days on Performance, with cross-region backups available for disaster recovery on higher tiers. ([source](https://www.tigerdata.com/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

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 TigerData if Time-series and analytics workloads that want to stay in Postgres — TimescaleDB's compression is the reason the storage line is affordable at volume.

Consider something else: 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.

Consider something else: TigerData — The advertised storage price assumes 5x compression, so a workload that does not compress that well pays materially more than the figure suggests.

## Documented by only one

- Free tier: Amazon Aurora: Yes — capped Free plan plus time-limited credits
- Entry paid plan: TigerData: Compute starts at $30/month on Performance, billed hourly, with storage charged separately. Scale starts at $36/month.
- Scales to zero: Amazon Aurora: Supported — serverless capacity mode only
- Regions: Amazon 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.
- Database branching: Amazon Aurora: Limited — clones, not a branch workflow
- 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.
- Rewind in place: Amazon Aurora: Limited — Aurora MySQL edition only
- Storage price: TigerData: $0.177 per GB-month on Performance and $0.212 on Scale. TigerData notes the effective price assumes 5x compression, which is an average rather than a guarantee.
- ISO 27001: Amazon 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.
- HIPAA: Amazon Aurora: Listed as a HIPAA-eligible service on AWS's own reference page.
- GDPR / data residency: Amazon 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.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Should I choose Amazon Aurora or TigerData?**

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 TigerData if Time-series and analytics workloads that want to stay in Postgres — TimescaleDB's compression is the reason the storage line is affordable at volume.