# Rethinking Snapshots at Scale: Neon vs AWS RDS

DevFeed: [Rethinking Snapshots at Scale: Neon vs AWS RDS](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/rethinking-snapshots-at-scale-neon-vs-aws-rds-5738.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://neon.com/blog/postgres-snapshots-neon-vs-rds>)

Author: Carlota Soto

Published: 2025-05-05T00:03:56Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Blog -- Neon Docs](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/blog-neon-docs.md>)

Topics: [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>), [Database](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/database.md>), [Amazon Web Services](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/aws.md>), [Amazon S3](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/amazon-s3.md>), [migration](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/migration.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>)

Tags: [aws](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/aws.md>), [compute](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/compute.md>), [migration](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/migration.md>), [postgres](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/postgres.md>), [product](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/product.md>), [production](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/production.md>), [recovery](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/recovery.md>), [s3](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/s3.md>), [snapshots](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/snapshots.md>), [speed](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/speed.md>), [storage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/storage.md>)

## AI overview

This article compares snapshot workflows for production Postgres databases in AWS RDS and Neon. It argues that RDS snapshots become slow, costly, and operationally cumbersome at multi-terabyte scale because using them requires restoring a full database instance, copying data from S3, and potentially replaying WAL logs. The article presents Neon's snapshot architecture as enabling faster access to historical database states and workflows such as querying old data, validating fixes, comparing schemas, and troubleshooting regressions.

## Source excerpt

Snapshots are a critical safety net for any team running Postgres in production. If you're using AWS RDS, you're probably relying on them mostly as protection against accidental changes. But if your database grows to many terabytes, the experience of actually using those snapshot...