Amazon Aurora DSQL
activeby Amazon Web Services · since 2025 · also known as Aurora DSQL, DSQL
Serverless, active-active distributed SQL on AWS with PostgreSQL compatibility and no instances to size.
Overview
Aurora DSQL is AWS's serverless distributed SQL database, generally available since May 2025. It splits query processing, transaction adjudication, journaling and storage into independently scaling services, uses optimistic concurrency with snapshot isolation, and can run as a multi-Region cluster where both Regions accept strongly consistent writes. It exposes a PostgreSQL-compatible interface with IAM-token authentication, though it supports a deliberately reduced feature set: no extensions, triggers or PL/pgSQL, and foreign keys and expression indexes only arrived in 2026. Pick it for new AWS-native OLTP services that want zero capacity planning and multi-Region writes; avoid it for lifted-and-shifted Postgres apps.
Strengths & trade-offs
Strengths
- +No instances, ACUs or shards to manage; pay per DPU consumed
- +Multi-Region clusters with strongly consistent writes in both Regions
- +Optimistic concurrency avoids lock contention and scales reads and writes independently
- +IAM-based authentication and native connectors that refresh tokens automatically
- +Generous monthly free allowance for small workloads
Trade-offs
- −Large Postgres feature gaps: no extensions, triggers, PL/pgSQL, sequences-heavy patterns or LISTEN/NOTIFY
- −Transaction limits on rows modified and duration require batching large writes
- −OCC conflicts surface as retries the application must handle
- −AWS-only and young, with a fast-changing compatibility matrix
Great for
- +New AWS-native microservices needing zero-ops relational storage
- +Multi-Region active-active user, order and entitlement data
- +Serverless apps on Lambda with spiky traffic
- +Ledgers and counters that must never lose a committed write
Think twice for
- −Existing Postgres apps relying on extensions or stored procedures
- −Bulk ETL loads or long-running transactions
- −Analytics and reporting queries
- −Multi-cloud deployments
Capabilities
Native or official first-party support · 8 of 25 tracked
Scale & consistency
- Comfortable data size
- Large · ≤ 1 PB
- Horizontal scaling
- Native
- Multi-region
- Active active
- Transactions
- Full ACID
- Consistency
- Strong
- Schema
- Strict
- Architecture
- Distributed, Serverless, Multi primary
- Query languages
- SQL
Reads, writes, compute and storage scale independently; clusters default to 10 TiB and can be raised to 256 TiB; multi-Region clusters pair two Regions with a witness Region.
Deployment
available on · AWS
Ecosystem
Alternatives to Amazon Aurora DSQL
Postgres-wire distributed SQL built to survive node, zone and region failures with serializable transactions.
amazon-aurora-dsql vs cockroachdb →Google's globally consistent, horizontally scaling SQL service with graph, vector and full-text built in.
amazon-aurora-dsql vs google-cloud-spanner →Apache-licensed distributed SQL that reuses the PostgreSQL query layer on a Raft-replicated storage engine.
amazon-aurora-dsql vs yugabytedb →AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer.
amazon-aurora-dsql vs amazon-aurora →AWS's serverless key-value and document store with single-digit-millisecond reads at any scale.
amazon-aurora-dsql vs amazon-dynamodb →Serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks.
amazon-aurora-dsql vs neon →Amazon Aurora DSQL FAQ
What is Amazon Aurora DSQL?
Amazon Aurora DSQL is a relational database by Amazon Web Services, first released in 2025. Aurora DSQL is AWS's serverless distributed SQL database, generally available since May 2025. It splits query processing, transaction adjudication, journaling and storage into independently scaling services, uses optimistic concurrency with snapshot isolation, and can run as a multi-Region cluster where both Regions accept strongly consistent writes. It exposes a PostgreSQL-compatible interface with IAM-token authentication, though it supports a deliberately reduced feature set: no extensions, triggers or PL/pgSQL, and foreign keys and expression indexes only arrived in 2026. Pick it for new AWS-native OLTP services that want zero capacity planning and multi-Region writes; avoid it for lifted-and-shifted Postgres apps.
Is Amazon Aurora DSQL open source?
No. Amazon Aurora DSQL is proprietary, closed-source software.
Does Amazon Aurora DSQL support ACID transactions?
Yes. Amazon Aurora DSQL supports full ACID transactions, with strong consistency.
Does Amazon Aurora DSQL scale horizontally?
Amazon Aurora DSQL scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at large scale (≤ 1 PB). It supports active-active multi-region writes.
How can I run Amazon Aurora DSQL?
You can use the vendor's managed cloud and run it serverless. It is available on AWS.
What is Amazon Aurora DSQL best for?
Amazon Aurora DSQL is a strong fit for new AWS-native microservices needing zero-ops relational storage; multi-Region active-active user, order and entitlement data; and serverless apps on Lambda with spiky traffic. Think twice for existing Postgres apps relying on extensions or stored procedures.
What are the best alternatives to Amazon Aurora DSQL?
Common alternatives to Amazon Aurora DSQL include CockroachDB, Google Cloud Spanner, YugabyteDB, Amazon Aurora and Amazon DynamoDB. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.
How popular is Amazon Aurora DSQL?
Amazon Aurora DSQL ranks #227 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (14.7/100), and #71 among relational databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.