The difference between Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, and MySQL can be understood by looking at three levels: database engine, database service, and deployment model.
🧠 1. MySQL
(Database Engine)
- What it is: An open-source relational database engine.
- Where it runs: Anywhere (on-prem, EC2, RDS, Aurora, etc.).
- Use case: Lightweight, flexible, popular for LAMP stack apps.
- Pros:
- Free and open-source.
- Large community support.
- Cons:
- May struggle with high throughput or large-scale workloads.
- Needs tuning and maintenance when self-managed.
☁️ 2. Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service)
(Managed Service)
- What it is: A fully managed database service by AWS.
- What it supports: Multiple database engines, including:
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- MariaDB
- Oracle
- SQL Server
- Aurora
- Use case: Managed version of databases with automated backups, patching, replication, monitoring.
- Pros:
- No server maintenance.
- Supports replicas, backups, auto-failover.
- Easy scaling (storage and compute).
- Cons:
- Slower write performance than Aurora.
- Costlier than self-managed MySQL.
⚡ 3. Amazon Aurora
(Cloud-Native Database Engine in RDS)
- What it is: A proprietary cloud-native database engine built by AWS.
- MySQL-Compatible or PostgreSQL-Compatible.
- Where it runs: Only on Amazon RDS.
- Use case: High performance, high availability MySQL/PostgreSQL-compatible workloads.
- Pros:
- 5x faster than MySQL, 3x faster than PostgreSQL (according to AWS).
- Distributed, fault-tolerant storage (replicates 6 copies across 3 AZs).
- Auto-healing and continuous backup to S3.
- Supports Aurora Serverless (scales automatically).
- Cons:
- More expensive than standard RDS MySQL.
- Tied to AWS ecosystem.
Summary
| Feature | MySQL (self-managed) | RDS (MySQL) | Aurora (MySQL-compatible) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management | Manual | AWS-managed | AWS-managed |
| Performance | Standard | Standard (some tuning) | High (5x MySQL performance) |
| Availability | Manual | Multi-AZ (optional) | Built-in multi-AZ (3 AZs) |
| Scalability | Manual | Moderate (read replicas) | High (distributed storage) |
| Compatibility | N/A | MySQL engine | MySQL-compatible |
| Pricing | Lowest (you manage) | Moderate | Higher |
| Backup/Restore | Manual or tools | Automated backups | Continuous backup |
🧩 Analogy
- MySQL = The engine.
- RDS = A valet service that maintains and manages your engine.
- Aurora = A supercharged engine built by AWS, still compatible with MySQL, but running with cloud-native optimizations.
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