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Amazon Aurora vs Alibaba PolarDB

Amazon Aurora: AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer. Alibaba PolarDB: Alibaba Cloud's shared-storage relational service in MySQL-, PostgreSQL- and Oracle-compatible editions.

key differences

  • Only Amazon Aurora has pub/sub, branching.
  • Only Alibaba PolarDB has columnar storage, in-memory, compression, online schema changes.

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 polardb for

  • +E-commerce and gaming backends on Alibaba Cloud
  • +Oracle migrations in Chinese enterprises
  • +Read-heavy apps needing fast replica scaling
  • +HTAP reporting with IMCI

best at · OLTP, HTAP, Real-time analytics

Amazon AuroraAWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer.
Alibaba PolarDBAlibaba Cloud's shared-storage relational service in MySQL-, PostgreSQL- and Oracle-compatible editions.
overview
Primary model
Relational
Relational
Also supports
Document, Spatial, Vector
Document, Spatial, Columnar / OLAP, Vector
Type
Managed service
Managed service
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Amazon Web Services
Alibaba Cloud
First release
2015
2017
Latest version
–
–
License
ProprietaryProprietary (AWS service)
ProprietaryProprietary (Alibaba Cloud service)
Free tier
—
—
popularity
WhichDB Score
24.9
2.7
Rank
#123
#461
GitHub stars
–
–
Stack Overflow questions
1.6K
61
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Horizontal scaling
Addon
Addon
Multi-region
Read replicas
Read replicas
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong, Eventual
Strong
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Shared storage, Primary replica, Serverless
Shared storage, Primary replica, Serverless
deployment
Self-hosted
—
—
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
✓
✓
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS
Alibaba 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, PL/SQL (Oracle-compatible edition)
Client languages
Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, C#, PHP, Ruby
Java, Python, Go, PHP, JavaScript, C#
Best for
OLTP, Content, Metadata, Vector search
OLTP, HTAP, Real-time analytics, Geo
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Amazon Aurora vs Alibaba PolarDB: FAQ

What is the difference between Amazon Aurora and Alibaba PolarDB?

Amazon Aurora: AWS's MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine on a shared, six-way replicated storage layer. Alibaba PolarDB: Alibaba Cloud's shared-storage relational service in MySQL-, PostgreSQL- and Oracle-compatible editions. Only Amazon Aurora has pub/sub, branching. Only Alibaba PolarDB has columnar storage, in-memory, compression, online schema changes.

When should I choose Amazon Aurora over Alibaba PolarDB?

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 Alibaba PolarDB for E-commerce and gaming backends on Alibaba Cloud; oracle migrations in Chinese enterprises; and read-heavy apps needing fast replica scaling.

Is Amazon Aurora or Alibaba PolarDB more popular?

Amazon Aurora ranks #123 on the WhichDB Score (24.9/100) and Alibaba PolarDB ranks #461 (2.7/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Amazon Aurora and Alibaba PolarDB open source?

No. Amazon Aurora is proprietary, closed-source software. No. Alibaba PolarDB is proprietary, closed-source software.