What it does
Amazon Aurora MySQL and Aurora PostgreSQL are managed relational database engines in Amazon RDS. A project can keep a familiar PostgreSQL- or MySQL-compatible client workflow while AWS operates the database cluster, with provisioned and serverless capacity options. The getting-started guide covers creating and connecting to either engine. This entry is limited to those two Aurora-compatible engines and does not cover Aurora DSQL.
Start with the engine your application speaks
The Amazon RDS guide has separate tutorials for creating and connecting to Aurora MySQL and Aurora PostgreSQL clusters. Before creation, AWS asks users to complete the environment setup for Aurora. A practical evaluation is to choose the compatible engine that matches the application's SQL and driver expectations, create a cluster through the RDS workflow, then connect with the corresponding client and test the application's queries. The official pages document this path; no AWS account or database was created for this listing.
Aurora is a managed service rather than a database binary to maintain yourself. The product page describes AWS-managed infrastructure and cluster scaling, while the pricing page distinguishes provisioned instances from serverless capacity. That reduces the work of operating database hosts, but teams still need to choose capacity, storage and I/O settings that suit their access pattern and to plan around cluster endpoints and scaling behavior.
Read the free tier as a limited evaluation route
The pricing page describes a no-cost Free Tier for new AWS customers using Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless, with capacity and storage limits. It also lists paid usage for instances and storage, with I/O and optional features affecting the bill. Free access is therefore not a general promise that every Aurora engine or production workload is free. Check current account eligibility and the selected engine's pricing before moving beyond an evaluation.
Strengths
- Aurora offers PostgreSQL- and MySQL-compatible engine choices for applications already using those database families.
- The official getting-started guide provides separate create-and-connect tutorials for Aurora PostgreSQL and Aurora MySQL.
- Provisioned and serverless configurations let a team compare capacity models for its workload.
Watch out for
- The documented no-cost Free Tier is restricted to new AWS customers using Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless and has capacity and storage limits.
- Ongoing charges depend on the engine configuration, instance or serverless capacity, storage, I/O settings, and optional features.
Best for
- Applications that need a managed relational database while retaining PostgreSQL or MySQL compatibility.
- AWS teams comparing provisioned and serverless cluster capacity for a production relational workload.
Sources
- Relational Database - Amazon Aurora MySQL PostgreSQL - AWS (Oct 25, 2026)
- Getting started with Amazon Aurora (Oct 25, 2026)
- Amazon Aurora Pricing (Oct 25, 2026)