Aurora DSQL

What hackers pick instead

• Google Cloud SpannerGoogle's globally distributed relational database, recommended for strong consistency, easy scaling and smooth operations. The most common caveat is cost, which critics call high.23recommend

Every quote

The 10 most detailed of 11 comments. Each links to the original.

1. DSQL looks to be more cost effective for small projects if you can deal with the deviations from Postgres.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Go ahead, self-host Postgres”

2. A generous free tier to get you going with development.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “$50 PlanetScale Metal Is GA for Postgres”

3. if you use a very loose definition of "Postgres"

   Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Databases in 2025: A Year in Review”

4. DSQL is still lacking many core Postgres features (most notably foreign keys)

   Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Show HN: DBOSify – Drop-in Temporal replacement built on Postgres”

5. solving the essential scaling bottleneck that relational DBs give you without ending up with a weird system like dynamodb

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Aurora DSQL: Scalable, Multi-Region OLTP”

6. we do buffer and cache sizing very dynamically

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Three Cache Layers Between Select and Disk”

7. DSQL, for example, doesn’t have them

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Why Strong Consistency?”

8. carefully choosing regions close together to show transaction commit times which are not horrible

   Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “Aurora DSQL: Scalable, Multi-Region OLTP”

9. DSQL has some serious limitations (transaction size, but also others)

   Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “Aurora DSQL: Scalable, Multi-Region OLTP”

10. I have zero intention of getting locked in to AWS

    Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “Aurora DSQL: Scalable, Multi-Region OLTP”