# Amazon Aurora vs Turso

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Amazon Aurora | Turso |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes — capped Free plan plus time-limited credits | Yes |
| 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. | Per database, metered on rows rather than compute time: 500 million rows read and 10 million written a month on the free plan, 2.5 billion and 25 million on Developer, with overage at $1 per billion rows read and $1 per million written. |
| 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. | SQLite, via libSQL — Turso's own fork. Not Postgres or MySQL, so the query surface and the client libraries differ from every other database on this site. |
| Database branching | Limited — clones, not a branch workflow | Supported |
| 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. | 10 days on Developer. 1 day on the free plan, 30 days on Scaler and 90 days on Pro. |

## 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/))
- Turso: Per database, metered on rows rather than compute time: 500 million rows read and 10 million written a month on the free plan, 2.5 billion and 25 million on Developer, with overage at $1 per billion rows read and $1 per million written. ([source](https://turso.tech/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))
- Turso: SQLite, via libSQL — Turso's own fork. Not Postgres or MySQL, so the query surface and the client libraries differ from every other database on this site. ([source](https://turso.tech/pricing))

### Database branching

- Amazon Aurora: Limited — clones, not a branch workflow ([source](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Aurora.Managing.Clone.html))
- Turso: Supported ([source](https://turso.tech/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))
- Turso: 10 days on Developer. 1 day on the free plan, 30 days on Scaler and 90 days on Pro. ([source](https://turso.tech/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 Turso if Applications that want a database per tenant or per user — 100 databases on the free plan and unlimited above it make that a shape you can actually build.

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: Turso — It is SQLite, not Postgres: the metered units are rows read and written rather than compute, and the extension ecosystem you may be relying on is not there.

## Documented by only one

- Entry paid plan: Turso: $4.99/month for Developer, the cheapest paid plan. Scaler is $24.92 and Pro $416.58.
- Storage (entry plan): Turso: 9 GB on Developer, then $0.75 per GB. The free plan includes 5 GB; Scaler is 24 GB at $0.50 and Pro 50 GB at $0.45.
- 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.
- Read replicas: Amazon Aurora: Supported — 15 per cluster, a quota AWS will not raise
- 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
- 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 Turso?**

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 Turso if Applications that want a database per tenant or per user — 100 databases on the free plan and unlimited above it make that a shape you can actually build.