# Aurora DSQL

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Aurora DSQL and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Relational database that scales without a weird system like DynamoDB, with a generous free tier. Caveat: many Postgres features, like foreign keys, are missing.

## Why people recommend it

- Cost-effective for small projects (2 comments): "DSQL looks to be more cost effective for small projects if you can deal with the deviations from Postgres." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46339659)) "A generous free tier to get you going with development." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277788))

## What people warn about

- Missing core Postgres features (2 comments): "if you use a very loose definition of "Postgres"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46521055)) "DSQL is still lacking many core Postgres features (most notably foreign keys)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48698861))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Google Cloud Spanner](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-cloud-spanner.md): 23 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/dsql/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Aurora DSQL", https://hackerapproved.com/p/aurora-dsql/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).