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DBMS > Amazon Aurora vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

System Properties Comparison Amazon Aurora vs. Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameAmazon Aurora  Xexclude from comparisonGoogle Cloud Spanner  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL Azure  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionFully managed relational database service built for the cloud providing unparalleled high performance and availability at global scale for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and DSQLA horizontally scalable, globally consistent, relational database service. It is the externalization of the core Google database that runs the biggest aspects of Google, like Ads and Google Play.Database as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL Server
Primary database modelRelational DBMSRelational DBMSRelational DBMS
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Spatial DBMS
Vector DBMS
Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score7.25
Rank#46  Overall
#29  Relational DBMS
Score2.56
Rank#97  Overall
#50  Relational DBMS
Score75.45
Rank#17  Overall
#12  Relational DBMS
Websiteaws.amazon.com/­rds/­auroracloud.google.com/­spannerazure.microsoft.com/­en-us/­products/­azure-sql/­database
Technical documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com/­AmazonRDS/­latest/­AuroraUserGuide/­CHAP_AuroraOverview.html
docs.aws.amazon.com/­aurora-dsql/­latest/­userguide/­what-is-aurora-dsql.html
cloud.google.com/­spanner/­docsdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­azure-sql
Social network pagesLinkedIn
DeveloperAmazonGoogleMicrosoft
Initial release201520172010
Current releaseAurora DSQL, November 2024 (preview), PostgreSQL: docs.aws.amazon.com/­AmazonRDS/­latest/­AuroraPostgreSQLReleaseNotes/­AuroraPostgreSQL.Updates.html , MySQL: docs.aws.amazon.com/­AmazonRDS/­latest/­AuroraMySQLReleaseNotes/­AuroraMySQL.release-calendars.htmlV12
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercialcommercialcommercial
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesyesyes
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languagePostgreSQL/MySQL: C, C++, Aurora DSQL: RustC++
Server operating systemsAmazon Linuxhostedhosted
Data schemeyesyesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.yesnoyes
Secondary indexesyesyesyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyes, MySQL and PostgreSQL dialectsyes infoQuery statements complying to ANSI 2011yes
APIs and other access methodsDSQL API: docs.aws.amazon.com/­aurora-dsql/­latest/­userguide/­CHAP_api_reference.html
MySQL wire protocol
PostgreSQL wire protocol
RDS Data API: docs.aws.amazon.com/­AmazonRDS/­latest/­UserGuide/­ProgrammingGuide.html
gRPC (using protocol buffers) API
JDBC infoAt present, JDBC supports read-only queries. No support for DDL or DML statements.
RESTful HTTP API
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Supported programming languagesAda
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Rust
Scheme
Tcl
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresPL/pgSQL, MySQL stored program language, APG trusted language extensionsnoTransact SQL
TriggersAurora MySQL: Yes. Aurora PostgreSQL: Yes. Aurora DSQL: No.noyes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesDBMS table partitioning, Horizontal storage partitioning, Sharding, Distributed horizontal partitioning (DSQL)Sharding
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesFull replication
Logical replication
Snapshot replication
Transactional replication
Multi-source replication with 3 replicas for regional instances.yes, with always 3 replicas available
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnoyes infousing Google Cloud Dataflowno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemEventual Consistency
Immediate/Strong Consistency
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyes infoby using interleaved tables, this features focuses more on performance improvements than on referential integrityyes
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACID, Multi-statementACID infoStrict serializable isolationACID
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of dataMultiversion concurrency control (MVCC) with fully compatible MySQL and PostgreSQL options. Optimistic concurrency control (OCC) in Aurora DSQL.yesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentData is replicated across 3 Availability Zones (AZs) within a single AWS Region. Active-active multi-Region high availability across 3 Regions (2 active, 1 witness) and automated failover recovery with Aurora DSQL. Automated, continuous backup of data with point in time restore. Fault-tolerant, self-healing storage system.yesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesno
User concepts infoAccess controlRole based permissions
Row level security
Access rights for users, groups and roles based on Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM)fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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More resources
Amazon AuroraGoogle Cloud SpannerMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL Azure
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Recent citations in the news

Optimizing cost savings: The advantage of Amazon Aurora over self-managed open source databases
31 March 2025, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Introducing Amazon Aurora DSQL | Amazon Web Services
3 December 2024, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Limitless Database is now generally available
31 October 2024, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Introducing scaling to 0 capacity with Amazon Aurora Serverless v2
20 November 2024, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Evaluating the right fit for your Amazon Aurora workloads: provisioned or Serverless v2 | Amazon Web Services
23 October 2024, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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