Amazon Aurora vs Turso
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Amazon Aurora and Turso built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
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 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.
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.
- 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.
4 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Amazon Aurora 0
Turso 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Amazon Aurora | Turso |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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. |
| Data | ||
| 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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 — Turso ↗
“Monthly Rows Read Free 500 Million Developer 2.5 Billion + $1 / Billion Scaler 100 Billion + $0.80 / Billion [...] Monthly Rows Written Free 10 Million Developer 25 Million + $1 / Million”
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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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 — Turso ↗
“Embedded Replicas Database Branching Backups & Recovery Platform API Turso Database Quickstart”
Read 2026-09-06 · official site
Database branching
- Amazon Aurora
- Limited — clones, not a branch workflow
- Turso
- Supported
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Cloning a volume for an Amazon Aurora DB cluster — Amazon Aurora User Guide ↗
“Aurora uses a copy-on-write protocol to create a clone. This mechanism uses minimal additional space to create an initial clone. [...] Aurora cloning is especially useful for quickly setting up test environments using your production data, without risking data corruption.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Pricing — Turso ↗
“Embedded Replicas Database Branching Backups & Recovery [...] Do Database Branches cost money?”
Read 2026-09-06 · official site
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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Backing up and restoring an Aurora DB cluster — Amazon Aurora User Guide ↗
“Aurora automated backups are continuous and incremental, so you can quickly restore to any point within the backup retention period. No performance impact or interruption of database service occurs as backup data is being written.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Pricing — Turso ↗
“Point-In-Time Restore Free 1 day Developer 10 days Scaler 30 days Pro 90 days”
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.
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.
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.