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Amazon Aurora vs InterSystems IRIS comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Aurora
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Ranking in Database Management Systems (DBMS)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
InterSystems IRIS
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
14th
Ranking in Database Management Systems (DBMS)
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Amazon Aurora is 3.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of InterSystems IRIS is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Aurora3.0%
InterSystems IRIS0.9%
Other96.1%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SivashankarRajaram - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Cloud database has delivered high performance and cost savings for data recovery and growth
Amazon can make better access levels and reduce costs for Amazon Aurora. A cost reduction would support multiple teams to adopt this solution since the cost is currently higher. Comparatively, we have the feature of scaling and everything we need. If you launch PostgreSQL on-premises, you need to have a separate DBA for maintenance and everything. If Amazon reduces the cost of Amazon Aurora, it would support large team adoption. A great feature to see in the next version of Amazon Aurora would be improvements in vectorization. In our PostgreSQL, we have pg_vector that helps with vectorizing many of the tables and that is used for data science projects. If Amazon improves this vectorization, it would be much more useful for data science and AI projects.
reviewer2892648 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer/Database Administrator at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
Robust multidimensional database has enabled smooth API integrations and modern data workflows
I think InterSystems IRIS is a continuation of the Caché legacy. Since I have been working with it since 2005 with Caché, I think it is a really amazing tool. It is a very robust and very scalable database. It is very good to work with, and I am already used to working with it. Where it falls a bit short is in the availability of manpower and professionals who work with InterSystems IRIS or Caché. There are few professionals who work with it. Another thing is the cost and the license cost. I think there could be some kind of package that could serve smaller companies and small and medium-sized companies. That would reach a larger slice of the market, because the cost to work with Caché, InterSystems IRIS, and so on is high. I would make this remark about putting together a package and a new product that could serve small and medium-sized companies. The area where InterSystems IRIS falls a bit short is in the cost and the licensing cost. The licensing cost is the main issue I have already mentioned.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The migration process to Amazon Aurora is the best part; it's one of its key strengths, as we hardly had any hiccups during migration, which was very smooth and pretty straightforward given our data was mostly in English."
"Cost-wise, switching to Amazon Aurora is beneficial, saving me around $60,000 per year."
"Aurora's compatibility with MySQL or PostgreSQL benefited our database management. The migration from on-premise MySQL to Aurora was similar, so we didn't need to change our source code."
"Amazon Aurora stands out for its ease of use in a managed environment, inbuilt security, continuous backups, numerous read replicas, multi-region automated replication, and seamless integration with other AWS services."
"Aurora's features that I find the most beneficial include its database backup strategy, performance options, and input-output operations."
"One of the most valuable features is storage scaling."
"They now offer some really good scaling and limitless versions that are available to me, which I find very impressive."
"The provision of custom read and write endpoints eliminates the need for managing a separate proxy load balancer."
"The best features that InterSystems IRIS offers in my opinion are the speed in querying data, and due to our system, which requires a large query with a large volume of data, InterSystems IRIS stands out for its query speed, making my work easier."
"The best features InterSystems IRIS offers, in my experience, include being a really powerful engine and a really good database."
"The best features InterSystems IRIS offers are its powerful database and speed, which contribute greatly to my work."
"InterSystems IRIS has had a positive impact on my organization by improving performance and data security."
"The best features that InterSystems IRIS offers are its capability to function as both a relational and non-relational database, with performance and speed as specific functionalities that serve as differentiators."
"In my opinion, the best features that InterSystems IRIS offers are its very optimized database, which I found amazing, and the observability it provides for checking messages and how the data is being transferred, which I find very interesting."
"My final observation is that everyone should use InterSystems IRIS; it is an amazing tool on the market."
"InterSystems IRIS as a database is very efficient, with its best features being its speed and high performance, along with an easy understanding of its data searching functionalities."
 

Cons

"AWS RDS doesn't provide an option to apply one-off patches, which can be critical for business due to unexpected product bugs."
"There are tuning challenges. The same methods used for tuning in RDS might not work in Aurora, and some functionalities available in MySQL may not be compatible with Aurora."
"I would like to see more AI-related features in future releases."
"There are tuning challenges."
"In my experience, I didn't see the claimed speed, and when you factor in the cost, or the extra cost of Aurora compared to a normal database, it didn't justify the cost from a performance standpoint, but it did justify the cost because we didn't have to have multiple instances, Redis caches, and other things like that."
"There is improvement needed to have more developer focus. Additionally, it would be helpful to have a stand-alone solution outside of Amazon. Amazon has a tendency to favor developing web-based clients, which may not always provide the fastest or most responsive solution as desired."
"In Oracle, tools like Veridata allow for comparing databases and certifying data accuracy, even offering repair capabilities, which are missing in Aurora. There should be a similar comparison tool in Aurora."
"The pricing could improve. It should be reduced."
"Python support can be enhanced further, as it's really clunky at the moment, considering that the use of Python is pretty much all over the world and nobody knows ObjectScript really thoroughly and deeply."
"InterSystems IRIS can be improved since its studio is very poor."
"The area where InterSystems IRIS falls a bit short is in the cost and the licensing cost."
"InterSystems IRIS can be improved by addressing the lack of libraries, mainly mathematical ones, where we would save a lot of time on some formulas that we have to build by hand every time we need them."
"I cannot determine a very positive impact or a beneficial result from InterSystems IRIS, although this observability part is important because we were able to find problems much faster."
"InterSystems IRIS could be improved, particularly the internal interface of the database."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution."
"It is quite expensive."
"The price could be lower compared to its competitors."
"There is no need to buy a license for the product. We can pay as per the use case."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The tool’s pricing depends on the instance type. For cost optimization purposes, we use the result instance category."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
28%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Aurora?
The pricing for Amazon Aurora is different from DocumentDB because DocumentDB is cheaper. However, when you manage the administration more closely, you can control costs better with Amazon Aurora. ...
What needs improvement with Amazon Aurora?
Amazon can make better access levels and reduce costs for Amazon Aurora. A cost reduction would support multiple teams to adopt this solution since the cost is currently higher. Comparatively, we h...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Aurora?
Amazon Aurora is a service provided by AWS, and we received support from AWS for our implementation. The direction we are moving toward is specifically Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL.
What needs improvement with InterSystems IRIS?
InterSystems IRIS has already improved in many areas, and I enjoy using it. My work is sufficient for what I use, and I do not have anything more specific to make InterSystems IRIS better.
What is your primary use case for InterSystems IRIS?
My main use case for InterSystems IRIS is to manage bugs in the system when they are in production. A quick, specific example of how I use InterSystems IRIS to manage bugs in production is when the...
What advice do you have for others considering InterSystems IRIS?
Regarding InterSystems IRIS's AI capabilities, I believe the governance and security are positive. In my experience with its governance and security, I feel my data is well-protected, which is a gr...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dow Jones, Arizona State University, Verizon, Capital One, United Nations, Nielsen, Autodesk, Fanduel
Global Investment Bank, Parkview Medical Center
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Aurora vs. InterSystems IRIS and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.