Amazon Aurora vs Neon
Amazon Aurora
aws.amazon.com
Neon
neon.comSide by side
| Figure | Amazon Aurora | Neon |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $0.11/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 3 |
| Spec score · Ai Databases | 8.1 (#11) | 8.3 (#9) |
| Spec score · Relational Databases | 8.1 (#13) | 8.0 (#18) |
| Spec score · Databases And Backend | 8.1 (#14) | 8.1 (#17) |
| Spec score · Transaction Data Store Software | 8.1 (#17) | 8.0 (#21) |
| Compliance | AWS lists Aurora in compliance programs that include SOC, PCI, FedRAMP, and HIPAA. | Neon states it undergoes annual SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and ISO/IEC 27701:2019 audits, and has achieved HIPAA compliance. |
| Integrations | Aurora MySQL can invoke AWS Lambda functions and load data from or save data to Amazon S3. | Neon documents integrations and workflows involving Vercel, Prisma, Drizzle ORM, GitHub Actions, and its CLI. |
| Product | Amazon Aurora is a fully managed relational database service with PostgreSQL, MySQL, and DSQL engines. | Neon describes itself as a serverless, cloud-hosted PostgreSQL database service. |
| Security | Aurora supports encryption at rest using AWS KMS keys and uses SSL (AES-256) to secure data in transit. | Neon states that stored data is encrypted with AES-256 and data in transit uses TLS 1.2 or higher. |
| Support | Customers with an active AWS Premium Support plan can contact AWS for Aurora-specific troubleshooting and guidance. | Neon directs customers to its Discord community for questions and discussion. |
Plans
Amazon Aurora
- Free planFree
- Paid planPrice not published
- Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless Free planFree
- Aurora PostgreSQL and Aurora MySQL On-DemandPrice not published
In their own words
Amazon Aurora
Amazon Aurora has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Neon
Neon is a managed, cloud-hosted PostgreSQL service for relational databases. It adjusts compute resources to workload and can suspend compute during inactivity, restarting it when database activity resumes. Database branches are isolated, can be created in about a second, and share data through copy-on-write storage. Neon supports connection pooling through PgBouncer, read replicas, high availability, point-in-time recovery, JSON data, and seven-day backup retention. An API lets teams manage projects and databases programmatically. Documented workflows include Vercel, Prisma, Drizzle ORM, GitHub Actions, and its CLI. The Free plan is free, with 10 projects, 50 CU-hours per month per project, 0.5 GB storage per project, 10 branches per project, and 5 GB monthly egress. Launch is $0.11 a month, billed at $0.106 per CU-hour; Scale is $0.22 a month, billed at $0.222 per CU-hour. Neon states that stored data is encrypted with AES-256 and data in transit uses TLS 1.2 or higher. It says it joined Databricks in May 2025 and is now part of the Databricks Platform.