Managed relational databases · September 2026 Edition
Amazon RDS vs Amazon Aurora
Eleven of twelve models named Amazon RDS first on the direct prompt; four named Amazon Aurora. Amazon RDS was named by twelve of the twelve models and Amazon Aurora by eleven and Amazon RDS carries 59 labels and Amazon Aurora 30, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in one category this edition.
Named in one category this edition.
First-choice share32%11%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate22%17%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#1#3A position in a field of 9; printed, not drawn.
Labels5930A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Amazon RDS reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Google Cloud SQL was named alongside these two in eight of the twelve direct answers. Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud SQL · Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon Aurora
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the managed relational databases page.
By framing
How many of the twelve models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
Amazon RDSFirst choices, of twelve modelsAmazon Aurora
Direct114
Paraphrase52
Comparative80
Budget-constrained105 against Amazon RDS
Scale-constrained001 against Amazon Aurora
Negative218 against Amazon RDS · 4 against Amazon Aurora
Bars are first choices, 0 to 12 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to twelve.
The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora stood in it.
Both were the first choice
3 of 12 modelsThe answer named them together, and the judge labeled each a first choice.DeepSeek V4 FlashAmazon Aurora, Amazon RDS alternatives: Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Crunchy Bridge, Google Cloud SQL
Llama 4 MaverickAmazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, PostgreSQL alternatives: Ntirety, Rackspace Technology
Qwen 3.7 FlashAmazon Aurora, Amazon RDS alternatives: DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Supabase
Amazon RDS first, Amazon Aurora an alternative
8 of 12 modelsAmazon Aurora was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL alternatives: Azure Database for PostgreSQL/MySQL
GPT-5.4 miniAmazon RDS alternatives: Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL
Perplexity SonarAmazon RDS alternatives: Amazon Aurora, Azure SQL Database
Grok 4.1 FastAmazon RDS alternatives: Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL
Mistral SmallAmazon RDS alternatives: Google Cloud SQL, Kyndryl, Rackspace Technology
Kimi K2Amazon RDS alternatives: Azure Database, Google Cloud SQL
GLM 4.7 FlashXAmazon RDS alternatives: Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Scaleway
MiniMax M2.5Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database alternatives: Google Cloud SQL, Ntirety, Rackspace Technology
Amazon Aurora first, Amazon RDS not the choice
1 of 12 modelsAmazon RDS was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Gemini 3.5 FlashAmazon Aurora, PlanetScale alternatives: AlloyDB for PostgreSQL, CockroachDB, Neon
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Amazon RDS leads by twenty points.
Amazon RDS24%#1 of 9Amazon Aurora4%#8 of 9Mid-marketThe figures above
Amazon RDS leads by twenty-one points.
Amazon RDS32%#1 of 9Amazon Aurora11%#3 of 9Enterprise
Level: the same share of first choices.
Amazon RDS30%#1 of 6Amazon Aurora30%#2 of 6What the models said about Amazon RDS
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Amazon has significantly less detailed documentation for AWS RDS limitations compared to Azure SQL. AWS RDS SQL Server lacks the native backup solution for restoring a database to point in time” Claude Haiku 4.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Amazon RDS: Be cautious if you need *extreme write throughput*, *near-infinite horizontal scaling*, *full engine control*, or *global write distribution*” Perplexity Sonar · negative prompt · soft negative
“it may not be suitable for applications that require custom kernel parameters, filesystem-level tuning, or unsupported database extensions” Llama 4 Maverick · negative prompt · soft negative
“Supported Engines: Most comprehensive—supports 6 engines ... Choose AWS RDS/Aurora if you need broad engine support and cloud-native performance” MiniMax M2.5 · comparative prompt · first choice
“For Most Users: Start with AWS RDS (broadest engines, mature) or Google Cloud SQL (price/performance edge)—but POC costs first.” Grok 4.1 Fast · negative prompt · first choice
“The Corporate Standard: AWS RDS / Amazon Aurora ... Amazon Aurora (preferred over standard RDS for higher performance and scalability)” Qwen 3.7 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
What the models said about Amazon Aurora
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Avoid v2 for hobby projects, staging/dev environments, or low-traffic applications.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“While Aurora is SQL-compatible, its underlying storage and protocol layers are proprietary to AWS. Migrating a complex, highly optimized Aurora schema ... can be difficult and expensive.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · negative prompt · soft negative
“*Proprietary (e.g., Amazon Aurora, Cosmos DB):* Faster performance for complex workloads, but extremely difficult and expensive to migrate away from” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · soft negative
“The Corporate Standard: AWS RDS / Amazon Aurora ... Amazon Aurora (preferred over standard RDS for higher performance and scalability)” Qwen 3.7 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
“If you are on AWS and want a zero-friction, incredibly robust infrastructure: Choose AWS Aurora PostgreSQL.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
“Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL is the industry standard that will grow with you from $10M to $100M+ in revenue” Gemini 3.5 Flash · paraphrase prompt · first choice
Also compared
Comparisons are drawn for the top three products in each category. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.