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Amazon QLDB

discontinued

by Amazon Web Services · since 2019 · also known as Quantum Ledger Database, QLDB

AWS's serverless ledger database with a cryptographically verifiable journal, retired in July 2025.

ledgerdocumentmanaged serviceproprietarylegacy
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discontinued. AWS ended support for QLDB on 31 July 2025; customers were directed to migrate to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL.

Overview

Amazon Quantum Ledger Database was a fully managed ledger service: an immutable, append-only journal hashed into a verifiable chain, with documents in Amazon Ion queried through PartiQL, built-in history views and journal streaming to Kinesis. It targeted systems of record that need a trustworthy change history without running a blockchain. AWS announced its retirement in 2024 and ended support on 31 July 2025, and directed customers to Aurora PostgreSQL with audit extensions. It is listed here for migration context only.

Ledger & accountingTransactional apps (OLTP)

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • +Cryptographically verifiable, append-only journal
  • +Built-in history() queries over every document revision
  • +Serverless with no capacity management

Trade-offs

  • −Retired by AWS in 2025; no new workloads possible
  • −Low transaction limits and OCC conflicts under contention
  • −Ion/PartiQL tooling was niche

Great for

  • +Historical reference when migrating legacy QLDB ledgers
  • +Comparing ledger designs against immudb or TigerBeetle

Think twice for

  • −Any new project

Capabilities

Native or official first-party support · 9 of 25 tracked

✓Transactions
✓Joins
✓Secondary indexes
✓JSON
✓Change data capture
✓Durable persistence
✓Encryption at rest
✓Role-based access
✓Time travel
–Full-text search
–Vector search
–Geospatial
–Triggers
–Stored procedures
–Materialized views
–TTL / expiry
–Pub/Sub
–Columnar storage
–In-memory
–Compression
–Branching
–Online schema changes
–Streaming ingest
–Offline sync
–Runs in WebAssembly

Scale & consistency

Comfortable data size
Medium · ≤ 10 TB
Horizontal scaling
None
Multi-region
No
Transactions
Full ACID
Consistency
Strong
Schema
Schemaless
Architecture
Serverless
Query languages
PartiQL

Deployment

Self-hosted Vendor-managed cloud Serverless Embedded Edge Kubernetes operator

available on · AWS

Ecosystem

apis & protocolsQLDB Session API, AWS SDK
client languagesJava, Python, Node.js, Go, .NET

Alternatives to Amazon QLDB

Compare all→
immudbLedger17.2

Immutable, tamper-evident database with cryptographic proofs, offering key-value, SQL and document APIs.

amazon-qldb vs immudb →
Amazon AuroraRelational24.9

AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer.

amazon-qldb vs amazon-aurora →
TigerBeetleLedger19.2

Purpose-built financial transactions database: double-entry accounts and transfers at very high throughput.

amazon-qldb vs tigerbeetle →
PostgreSQLRelational93.2

The extensible, standards-first open-source relational database.

amazon-qldb vs postgresql →
XTDBRelational8.3

Bitemporal SQL database on object storage that keeps every version of every row.

amazon-qldb vs xtdb →
Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Limitless DatabaseRelational0.8

Managed horizontal sharding for Aurora PostgreSQL: one endpoint over a serverless group of shards.

amazon-qldb vs amazon-aurora-limitless →

Amazon QLDB FAQ

What is Amazon QLDB?

Amazon QLDB is a ledger database by Amazon Web Services, first released in 2019. Amazon Quantum Ledger Database was a fully managed ledger service: an immutable, append-only journal hashed into a verifiable chain, with documents in Amazon Ion queried through PartiQL, built-in history views and journal streaming to Kinesis. It targeted systems of record that need a trustworthy change history without running a blockchain. AWS announced its retirement in 2024 and ended support on 31 July 2025, and directed customers to Aurora PostgreSQL with audit extensions. It is listed here for migration context only.

Is Amazon QLDB open source?

No. Amazon QLDB is proprietary, closed-source software.

Does Amazon QLDB support ACID transactions?

Yes. Amazon QLDB supports full ACID transactions, with strong consistency.

Does Amazon QLDB scale horizontally?

Amazon QLDB does not scale horizontally; it runs on a single node, so you scale it up rather than out. It is comfortable at medium scale (≤ 10 TB).

How can I run Amazon QLDB?

You can use the vendor's managed cloud and run it serverless. It is available on AWS.

What is Amazon QLDB best for?

Amazon QLDB is a strong fit for historical reference when migrating legacy QLDB ledgers and comparing ledger designs against immudb or TigerBeetle. Think twice for any new project.

What are the best alternatives to Amazon QLDB?

Common alternatives to Amazon QLDB include immudb, Amazon Aurora, TigerBeetle, PostgreSQL and XTDB. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.

Is Amazon QLDB still maintained?

Amazon QLDB is discontinued. AWS ended support for QLDB on 31 July 2025; customers were directed to migrate to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL.

How popular is Amazon QLDB?

Amazon QLDB ranks #546 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (1.4/100), and #4 among ledger databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.