AuraDB Tiers
In the previous lesson you learned that AuraDB is Neo4j’s managed graph database service.
In this lesson, you will learn how to:
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Understand the four AuraDB tiers and their target use cases
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Compare features across tiers (storage, backups, availability)
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Select the right tier for your project
Choosing the right tier
AuraDB offers four tiers, each designed for different stages of development:
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Free: Learning and experimentation
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Professional: Production apps with moderate requirements
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Business Critical: Enterprise apps requiring high availability
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Virtual Dedicated Cloud: Strict compliance and security needs
AuraDB Free
AuraDB Free is designed for learning and experimentation. AuraDB Free provides a zero-cost way to learn Neo4j and prototype small applications.
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Limits: Up to 200,000 nodes and 400,000 relationships
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Cloud provider: GCP (us-central1 only)
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Backups: On-demand snapshots only
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Auto-pause: After 72 hours of inactivity
AuraDB Professional
AuraDB Professional is for when you need more storage, cloud provider choice, and daily backups, but don’t require high availability.
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Storage: Flexible sizing based on your needs
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Cloud provider: AWS, GCP, or Azure (multiple regions)
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Backups: Daily snapshots, retained for 7 days
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Pause control: Manual pause/resume
Using AuraDB Professional
While Aura offers AuraDB Free for experimentation, this course recommends starting with AuraDB Professional to access the full feature set. AuraDB Professional includes a free trial period (7 days, extendable by an additional 7 days), allowing exploration of all capabilities without upfront costs.
AuraDB Business Critical
AuraDB Business Critical is for when you need guaranteed uptime, role-based access control, single sign-on, and hourly backups, but don’t require high availability.
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Storage: Flexible sizing based on your needs
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Cloud provider: AWS, GCP, or Azure (multiple regions)
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Backups: Daily snapshots, retained for 7 days
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Pause control: Manual pause/resume
AuraDB Virtual Dedicated Cloud
AuraDB Virtual Dedicated Cloud is for when you need dedicated infrastructure, customer-managed encryption keys, and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) isolation.
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Infrastructure: Dedicated, isolated environment
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Security: Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK), Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) isolation
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Backups: Hourly snapshots, retained for 60 days
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Support: 24x7 premium support
Free trial available
AuraDB Professional, Business Critical, and Virtual Dedicated Cloud tiers include a free trial period (7 days, extendable by an additional 7 days) so you can explore all capabilities before committing.
For a detailed comparison of all tiers, see the Neo4j Aura pricing page and the instance creation documentation.
Check your understanding
Understanding Tier Features
Which Aura tier provides multi-availability zone cluster architecture for high availability?
Hint
High availability with automatic failover requires a cluster architecture spread across multiple availability zones.
Solution
Aura Business Critical provides multi-availability zone cluster architecture for maximum reliability and automatic failover.
Each tier serves different needs:
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AuraDB Free: Experimentation and learning (single instance, limited resources)
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AuraDB Professional: Production applications with moderate requirements (single instance, flexible sizing)
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Aura Business Critical: Enterprise applications requiring high availability (multi-Availability Zone cluster)
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Aura Virtual Dedicated Cloud: Strict compliance and security requirements (dedicated infrastructure)
Choose the tier that matches your specific requirements.
Summary
In this lesson, you learned how to choose the right AuraDB tier based on your use case.
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AuraDB Free — For learning and experimentation (up to 200K nodes)
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AuraDB Professional — For production apps with flexible sizing and daily backups
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AuraDB Business Critical — For enterprise apps requiring 99.95% uptime SLA
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AuraDB Virtual Dedicated Cloud — For strict compliance with dedicated infrastructure
In the next lesson, you will sign up for Neo4j Aura and set up an AuraDB instance.