AWS DynamoDB
What it is: AWS fully managed serverless NoSQL database. Key-value and document data models. Single-digit millisecond performance at any scale.
What It Does Best
Zero operations. No servers to manage. Auto-scaling, backups, encryption built-in. True serverless.
Consistent performance. Single-digit millisecond reads/writes at any scale. No performance cliffs.
Event-driven architecture. DynamoDB Streams trigger Lambda functions. Real-time data processing.
Pricing
On-demand: $1.25 per million write requests, $0.25 per million reads. Provisioned capacity: cheaper for predictable workloads.
When to Use It
✅ AWS-native applications
✅ Serverless architectures
✅ Gaming leaderboards, session stores
✅ Mobile app backends with spiky traffic
When NOT to Use It
❌ Complex queries and joins (limited query patterns)
❌ Analytics and aggregations (no GROUP BY)
❌ Multi-cloud or hybrid deployments
Bottom line: Best serverless database for AWS. Design your access patterns upfront—DynamoDB rewards good data modeling. Perfect for microservices, terrible for ad-hoc analytics.