AWS RDS Postgres at scale, and RDS to Aurora migration: 4 case studies
All four AWS RDS write-ups we track run PostgreSQL. Figma first moved from one Postgres instance to multiple databases by vertically partitioning table groups, then spent nine months horizontally sharding Postgres with a custom query proxy and logical sharding before physical splits. Notion split its Postgres monolith into logical shards keyed by workspace, using double writes and backfills to migrate. Atlassian moved off RDS: it migrated about four million Jira databases from RDS Postgres to Aurora.
4 of the 94 engineering write-ups in our database mention AWS RDS in their stack. They come from 3 companies (Figma, Atlassian and Notion) and were published between 2021 and 2025. Techniques that show up most often alongside AWS RDS: horizontal sharding (2) and online migration (2). It's often paired with PostgreSQL (4). 1 of the 4 state concrete scale numbers, for example "4 million databases" (Atlassian). Each card below links to our short summary and the original post.
Migrating PostgreSQL from Amazon RDS to Amazon Aurora
The one RDS-to-Aurora move in our database is Atlassian's 2025 post, Migrating the Jira Database Platform to AWS Aurora. Atlassian migrated about four million Jira databases from RDS Postgres to Aurora, balancing reliability, downtime and cost. The other three stories stayed on RDS and scaled Postgres by partitioning and sharding instead. For the two side by side, see Aurora vs RDS Postgres. We have no pricing or benchmark data, so check AWS's own documentation for your workload.
Migrating the Jira Database Platform to AWS Aurora
Atlassian migrated about four million Jira databases from RDS Postgres to Aurora, balancing reliability, downtime and cost.
How Figma's Databases Team Lived to Tell the Scale
Figma's nine-month effort to horizontally shard its Postgres stack using a custom query proxy and logical sharding before physical splits.
The growing pains of database architecture
How Figma moved from one Postgres instance to multiple databases by vertically partitioning table groups.
Herding elephants: Lessons learned from sharding Postgres at Notion
Notion split its Postgres monolith into a fleet of logical shards keyed by workspace, using double-writes and backfills to migrate.
FAQ
Can you migrate PostgreSQL from RDS to Aurora at scale?
Atlassian's 2025 post describes migrating about four million Jira databases from RDS Postgres to Aurora, while balancing reliability, downtime and cost.
Aurora vs RDS Postgres: which did these teams use?
Atlassian moved Jira's databases from RDS Postgres to Aurora. Figma and Notion describe scaling PostgreSQL on AWS RDS by vertical partitioning and horizontal sharding.
How did Figma and Notion scale Postgres on RDS?
Figma vertically partitioned table groups into multiple databases (2023), then horizontally sharded with a custom query proxy (2024). Notion split its Postgres monolith into logical shards keyed by workspace, migrated with double writes and backfills (2021).