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Amazon Aurora vs MySQL HeatWave

Amazon Aurora: AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer. MySQL HeatWave: Oracle's managed MySQL with an in-memory columnar engine for analytics, lakehouse, ML and vector search.

key differences

  • Horizontal scaling is addon in Amazon Aurora and native in MySQL HeatWave.
  • Only Amazon Aurora has pub/sub, time travel, branching.
  • Only MySQL HeatWave has columnar storage, in-memory, compression.
  • Amazon Aurora has a serverless option; MySQL HeatWave does not.

choose amazon-aurora for

  • +Production MySQL or PostgreSQL backends on AWS
  • +Read-heavy web and SaaS applications
  • +Spiky or dev/test workloads on Serverless v2
  • +Cross-region disaster recovery with Global Database

best at · OLTP, Content, Metadata

choose mysql-heatwave for

  • +Real-time dashboards on MySQL application data
  • +Consolidating a MySQL OLTP database and a separate warehouse
  • +RAG and semantic search over MySQL-resident content
  • +Querying data-lake files with MySQL SQL

best at · HTAP, OLTP, OLAP

Amazon AuroraAWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer.
MySQL HeatWaveOracle's managed MySQL with an in-memory columnar engine for analytics, lakehouse, ML and vector search.
overview
Primary model
Relational
Relational
Also supports
Document, Spatial, Vector
Columnar / OLAP, Document, Vector, Spatial
Type
Managed service
Managed service
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Amazon Web Services
Oracle Corporation
First release
2015
2020
Latest version
–
26.10.0 (innovation) (Oct 20, 2026)
License
ProprietaryProprietary (AWS service)
ProprietaryProprietary managed service (MySQL core is GPLv2)
Free tier
—
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
24.9
0.5
Rank
#123
#633
GitHub stars
–
–
Stack Overflow questions
1.6K
–
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Horizontal scaling
Addon
Native
Multi-region
Read replicas
Read replicas
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong, Eventual
Strong
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Shared storage, Primary replica, Serverless
Distributed, Primary replica, In memory
deployment
Self-hosted
—
—
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
✓
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS
Oracle Cloud, AWS, Azure
capabilities
Transactions
✓
✓
Joins
✓
✓
Secondary indexes
✓
✓
Full-text search
✓
✓
Vector search
✓
✓
Geospatial
✓
✓
JSON
✓
✓
Change data capture
✓
✓
Triggers
✓
✓
Stored procedures
✓
✓
Materialized views
✓
✓
TTL / expiry
—
—
Pub/Sub
✓
—
Columnar storage
—
✓
In-memory
—
✓
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
—
✓
Encryption at rest
✓
✓
Role-based access
✓
✓
Time travel
✓
—
Branching
✓
—
Online schema changes
—
—
Streaming ingest
—
—
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
SQL, PL/pgSQL
SQL, JavaScript (stored programs)
Client languages
Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, C#, PHP, Ruby
Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, PHP, C#, C++
Best for
OLTP, Content, Metadata, Vector search
HTAP, OLTP, OLAP, Real-time analytics
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Amazon Aurora vs MySQL HeatWave: FAQ

What is the difference between Amazon Aurora and MySQL HeatWave?

Amazon Aurora: AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer. MySQL HeatWave: Oracle's managed MySQL with an in-memory columnar engine for analytics, lakehouse, ML and vector search. Horizontal scaling is addon in Amazon Aurora and native in MySQL HeatWave. Only Amazon Aurora has pub/sub, time travel, branching. Only MySQL HeatWave has columnar storage, in-memory, compression.

When should I choose Amazon Aurora over MySQL HeatWave?

Choose Amazon Aurora for production MySQL or PostgreSQL backends on AWS; read-heavy web and SaaS applications; and spiky or dev/test workloads on Serverless v2. Choose MySQL HeatWave for real-time dashboards on MySQL application data; consolidating a MySQL OLTP database and a separate warehouse; and RAG and semantic search over MySQL-resident content.

Is Amazon Aurora or MySQL HeatWave more popular?

Amazon Aurora ranks #123 on the WhichDB Score (24.9/100) and MySQL HeatWave ranks #633 (0.5/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Amazon Aurora and MySQL HeatWave open source?

No. Amazon Aurora is proprietary, closed-source software. No. MySQL HeatWave is proprietary, closed-source software.