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Amazon Aurora vs PlanetScale

Amazon Aurora: AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer. PlanetScale: Performance-focused managed MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres, with NVMe-backed Metal clusters and branching.

key differences

  • PlanetScale is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Amazon Aurora (≤ 1 PB).
  • Horizontal scaling is addon in Amazon Aurora and native in PlanetScale.
  • Only Amazon Aurora has geospatial, pub/sub, time travel.
  • Only PlanetScale has compression, online schema changes.
  • Amazon Aurora has a serverless option; PlanetScale 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 planetscale for

  • +High-traffic SaaS backends sensitive to tail latency
  • +Teams that want safe, reviewable schema changes in CI
  • +Outgrowing a single MySQL primary
  • +Migrating from RDS/Aurora to faster NVMe-backed Postgres

best at · OLTP, Content, Metadata

Amazon AuroraAWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer.
PlanetScalePerformance-focused managed MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres, with NVMe-backed Metal clusters and branching.
overview
Primary model
Relational
Relational
Also supports
Document, Spatial, Vector
Document, Vector
Type
Managed service
Managed service
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Amazon Web Services
PlanetScale, Inc.
First release
2015
2021
Latest version
–
–
License
ProprietaryProprietary (AWS service)
ProprietaryProprietary (managed service; Vitess is Apache-2.0)
Free tier
—
—
popularity
WhichDB Score
24.9
25.7
Rank
#123
#118
GitHub stars
–
671
Stack Overflow questions
1.6K
60
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Massive (Multi-PB)
Horizontal scaling
Addon
Native
Multi-region
Read replicas
Read replicas
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong, Eventual
Strong, Eventual
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Shared storage, Primary replica, Serverless
Primary replica, Distributed
deployment
Self-hosted
—
—
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
✓
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS
AWS, Google Cloud
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, PL/pgSQL
Client languages
Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, C#, PHP, Ruby
JavaScript, Go, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, Rust
Best for
OLTP, Content, Metadata, Vector search
OLTP, Content, Metadata, Vector search
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Amazon Aurora vs PlanetScale: FAQ

What is the difference between Amazon Aurora and PlanetScale?

Amazon Aurora: AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer. PlanetScale: Performance-focused managed MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres, with NVMe-backed Metal clusters and branching. PlanetScale is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Amazon Aurora (≤ 1 PB). Horizontal scaling is addon in Amazon Aurora and native in PlanetScale. Only Amazon Aurora has geospatial, pub/sub, time travel.

When should I choose Amazon Aurora over PlanetScale?

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 PlanetScale for high-traffic SaaS backends sensitive to tail latency; teams that want safe, reviewable schema changes in CI; and outgrowing a single MySQL primary.

Is Amazon Aurora or PlanetScale more popular?

PlanetScale ranks #118 on the WhichDB Score (25.7/100) and Amazon Aurora ranks #123 (24.9/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Amazon Aurora and PlanetScale open source?

No. Amazon Aurora is proprietary, closed-source software. No. PlanetScale is proprietary, closed-source software.