Amazon Aurora
AWS relational database engine compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL, built on a shared cluster volume with copy-on-write cloning and a serverless capacity mode.
- Managed databases
- Yes — capped Free plan plus time-limited credits
- Not documented
- 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.
Who it suits.
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.
Consider something else if…
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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
What the documentation says.
Each value below links to the page it was read from, with the sentence it came from. Criteria Amazon Aurora does not publish are not listed.
Pricing
Free tier
Yes — capped Free plan plus time-limited credits
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Amazon Aurora pricing — Amazon Web Services ↗
“New AWS customers can get started with Aurora PostgreSQL serverless at no cost with the AWS Free Tier. You get $100 in AWS credits at sign-up to be used across eligible AWS services, including Aurora, for up to 12 months, in both Free and Paid plans, and you can earn an additional $100 in credits, for a total of $200. Free plan gives you access to Aurora PostgreSQL serverless instances with up to 4 ACUs and 1 GiB of storage per cluster.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official pricing
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.
Sources (1) →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
Infrastructure
Scales to zero
Supported — serverless capacity mode only
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Managing Aurora Serverless v2 — Amazon Aurora User Guide ↗
“Newer DB engine versions allow a maximum capacity of 256 ACUs, a minimum capacity of 0 ACUs, or both. [...] For the auto-pause and resume capability that's enabled by setting the minimum capacity to 0 ACUs, see Scaling to Zero ACUs with automatic pause and resume for Aurora serverless.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
Regions
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.
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Regions and Availability Zones — Amazon Aurora User Guide ↗
“Aurora MySQL Region availability The following table shows the AWS Regions where Aurora MySQL is currently available and the endpoint for each Region. Region Name Region Endpoint Protocol US East (Ohio) us-east-2 rds.us-east-2.amazonaws.com HTTPS US East (N. Virginia) us-east-1 rds.us-east-1.amazonaws.com HTTPS [...] Aurora PostgreSQL Region availability”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
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.
Sources (1) →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
Database branching
Limited — clones, not a branch workflow
Sources (1) →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
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.
Sources (1) →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
Read replicas
Supported — 15 per cluster, a quota AWS will not raise
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Quotas and constraints for Amazon RDS — Amazon Relational Database Service User Guide ↗
“Read replicas per primary Each supported Region: 15 Yes The maximum number of read replicas per primary DB instance. This quota cant be adjusted for Amazon Aurora.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
Backup retention
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.
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- 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
Rewind in place
Limited — Aurora MySQL edition only
Sources (1) →Sources ↓
- Backtracking an Aurora DB cluster — Amazon Aurora User Guide ↗
“With Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition, you can backtrack a DB cluster [...] Backtracking "rewinds" the DB cluster to the time you specify. [...] If you mistakenly perform a destructive action, such as a DELETE without a WHERE clause, you can backtrack the DB cluster to a time before the destructive action”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.