Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Amazon Aurora VS Microsoft SQL

Compare Amazon Aurora VS Microsoft SQL and see what are their differences

Amazon Aurora logo Amazon Aurora

MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud. Performance and availability of commercial-grade databases at 1/10th the cost.

Microsoft SQL logo Microsoft SQL

Microsoft SQL is a best in class relational database management software that facilitates the database server to provide you a primary function to store and retrieve data.
  • Amazon Aurora Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-17
  • Microsoft SQL Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-26

Amazon Aurora features and specs

  • High Performance
    Amazon Aurora is designed to provide up to five times the throughput of standard MySQL and three times the throughput of standard PostgreSQL databases.
  • Scalability
    Aurora scales storage automatically, growing from 10GB up to 128TB with no downtime. This automatic scaling makes it ideal for applications with fluctuating workloads.
  • High Availability and Durability
    Aurora automatically replicates six copies of data across three availability zones and continuously backs up data to Amazon S3, ensuring durability.
  • Security
    Aurora offers multiple layers of security including network isolation using Amazon VPC, encryption at rest using keys that you create and control through AWS Key Management Service (KMS), and encryption of data in transit using SSL.
  • Fully Managed
    Aurora is fully managed by AWS, which automates time-consuming administrative tasks such as hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups.
  • Compatibility
    Aurora is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL, making it easier to migrate existing applications to Aurora with minimal changes.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon Aurora

  • Cost
    Aurora can be more expensive than traditional RDS instances, particularly for workloads that do not fully utilize its high performance and scalability features.
  • Complexity
    The numerous features and configurations can make Aurora complex to manage and tune, especially for those who are not familiar with AWS services.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Adopting Aurora ties you into the AWS ecosystem, which can make it difficult to migrate to other cloud providers or on-premises systems.
  • Cold Start Latency
    Aurora Serverless can experience latency during cold starts, which can be problematic for applications requiring instant scalability.
  • Limited to AWS Environment
    Aurora is only available within the AWS environment, which can be limiting if your infrastructure spans multiple cloud providers.

Microsoft SQL features and specs

  • Comprehensive Feature Set
    SQL Server offers a wide range of features including advanced analytics, in-memory capabilities, robust security measures, and integration services.
  • High Performance
    With in-memory OLTP and support for persistent memory technologies, SQL Server provides high transaction and query performance.
  • Scalability
    SQL Server can scale from small installations on single machines to large, data-intensive applications requiring high throughput and storage.
  • Security
    SQL Server offers advanced security features like encryption, dynamic data masking, and advanced threat protection, ensuring data safety and compliance.
  • Integrations
    It easily integrates with other Microsoft products such as Azure, Power BI, and Active Directory, providing a cohesive ecosystem for enterprise solutions.
  • Developer Friendly
    It supports a wide range of development tools and languages including .NET, Python, Java, and more, making it highly versatile for developers.
  • High Availability
    Features like Always On availability groups and failover clustering provide high availability and disaster recovery options for critical applications.

Possible disadvantages of Microsoft SQL

  • Cost
    SQL Server can be expensive, particularly for the Enterprise edition. Licensing costs can add up quickly depending on the features and scale required.
  • Complexity
    Due to its comprehensive feature set, SQL Server can be complex to configure and manage, requiring skilled administrators and developers.
  • Resource Intensive
    SQL Server can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial hardware resources for optimal performance, which can increase overall operational costs.
  • Windows-Centric
    While SQL Server can run on Linux, it is primarily optimized for and tightly integrated with the Windows ecosystem, which may not suit all organizations.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Being a proprietary solution, it can cause vendor lock-in, making it challenging to switch to alternative database systems without significant migration efforts.

Amazon Aurora videos

Introduction to Amazon Aurora - Relational Database Built for the Cloud - AWS

More videos:

  • Review - Amazon Aurora Global Database Deep Dive
  • Review - What's New in Amazon Aurora - AWS Online Tech Talks

Microsoft SQL videos

3.1 Microsoft SQL Server Review

More videos:

  • Review - What is Microsoft SQL Server?
  • Review - Querying Microsoft SQL Server (T-SQL) | Udemy Instructor, Phillip Burton [bestseller]

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Amazon Aurora and Microsoft SQL)
Databases
30 30%
70% 70
Relational Databases
27 27%
73% 73
NoSQL Databases
100 100%
0% 0
Tool
17 17%
83% 83

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Amazon Aurora seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 23 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Amazon Aurora mentions (23)

  • Building a RAG System for Video Content Search and Analysis
    Using Amazon Bedrock to invoke Amazon Titan Foundation Models for generating multimodal embeddings, Amazon Transcribe for converting speech to text, and Amazon Aurora postgreSQL for vector storage and similarity search, you can build an application that understands both visual and audio content, enabling natural language queries to find specific moments in videos. - Source: dev.to / 23 days ago
  • Everyone Uses Postgres… But Why?
    Cloud deployment: PostgreSQL can be deployed in the cloud with AWS RDS, Amazon Aurora, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, or Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Announcing the public beta for dedicated clusters
    Today, our Postgres databases are Amazon Aurora instances. You can trust that your database will have the scalability, reliability and security that AWS is known for. With dedicated clusters you can configure both the Postgres engine version, cluster class and number of replicas for failover and query distribution. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Vector database is not a separate database category
    As far as the big players are concerned, Google offers AlloyDB (https://cloud.google.com/alloydb) while Amazon offers Aurora (https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Building realtime experiences with Amazon Aurora
    Aurora is a managed database service from Amazon compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. It allows for the use of existing MySQL code, tools, and applications and can offer increased performance for certain workloads compared to MySQL and PostgreSQL. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
View more

Microsoft SQL mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Microsoft SQL yet. Tracking of Microsoft SQL recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Amazon Aurora and Microsoft SQL, you can also consider the following products

PostgreSQL - PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system.

MySQL - The world's most popular open source database

Oracle DBaaS - See how Oracle Database 12c enables businesses to plug into the cloud and power the real-time enterprise.

SQLite - SQLite Home Page

SAP HANA - SAP HANA is an in-memory, column-oriented, relational database management system.

Oracle Database 12c - Simplify database management and automate the information lifecycle with maximum security.