RDS Basic Edition runs on a standalone architecture with decoupled compute and storage. It costs 50% less than RDS High-availability Edition and is suited for non-production workloads where downtime is acceptable.
RDS Basic Edition has no secondary instance and no hot standby. If the instance fails, or when you change its specifications or upgrade the database engine, your database may be unavailable for an extended period—in extreme cases, more than 30 minutes. For production workloads that require high availability, use RDS High-availability Edition or RDS Cluster Edition instead.
How it works
RDS Basic Edition uses a single primary RDS instance backed by Alibaba Cloud's Apsara distributed operating system, which keeps multiple copies of your data across the underlying storage layer. Because compute is decoupled from storage, a compute node failure does not result in data loss—your data remains intact on the storage layer.
The tradeoff is availability: there is no secondary RDS instance to take over automatically when the primary fails or undergoes maintenance.
Benefits
Lower cost
RDS Basic Edition costs 50% less than RDS High-availability Edition, making it a practical choice for development, testing, and learning environments.
Higher throughput for the same instance size
Because the primary instance does not replicate data to a secondary instance, there is no replication overhead. With the same instance configuration, RDS Basic Edition delivers higher throughput than RDS High-availability Edition.
Data durability despite compute failures
Decoupled compute and storage means a failed compute node does not cause data loss. The Apsara distributed operating system maintains multiple data copies on the storage layer independently of compute.
Edition comparison
| RDS Basic Edition | RDS High-availability Edition | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Standalone (single node) | Primary + secondary |
| Hot standby | No | Yes |
| Primary/secondary switchover | Not supported | Supported |
| Read-only instances | Not supported | Supported |
| Cost | 50% of High-availability Edition | Baseline |
| Target workload | Development, testing, learning, small websites | Production workloads requiring high availability |
Use cases
Development and testing
Spin up an RDS Basic Edition instance quickly for development or quality assurance (QA) environments. Instances provision fast and scale with your workload, without the cost of a high-availability setup.
Small websites and applications
Offload routine operations and maintenance (O&M) tasks to Alibaba Cloud and focus on building your application. RDS Basic Edition handles backups, monitoring, and alerting out of the box.
Learning ApsaraDB RDS
If you are new to ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL, RDS Basic Edition is a low-cost way to get familiar with the service before moving to a production-grade edition.
Features
RDS Basic Edition includes the following features:
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IP address whitelist
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Monitoring and alerting
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Backup and restoration
The following features are not available in RDS Basic Edition:
For the full feature list, see Features.
Limitations
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Downgrade from RDS High-availability Edition to RDS Basic Edition is not supported.
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Primary/secondary switchover is not available. If the primary instance fails, recovery may take an extended period.
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Read-only instances are not supported.
FAQ
Why does changing specifications or upgrading the database engine take so long?
RDS Basic Edition runs on a single physical server with no secondary instance. When you change the instance specifications or upgrade the database engine, the system checks whether the current physical server has sufficient resources. If it doesn't, the system migrates your database to another physical server. During the migration and switchover, your instance loses connectivity. In extreme cases, the interruption can last more than 30 minutes.
If downtime during maintenance is unacceptable for your workload, upgrade to RDS Enterprise Edition or RDS Cluster Edition. These editions use a high-availability architecture that replicates data from the secondary instance without impacting your running workloads.
Why does RDS Basic Edition support fewer features than other editions?
RDS Basic Edition has only one primary instance. Features that depend on a secondary instance—such as primary/secondary switchover and read-only instances—are not available. For the complete feature comparison across editions, see Features.
What's next
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Create an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance — create an instance that runs RDS Basic Edition
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Quick start — create and connect to an RDS Basic Edition instance
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Upgrade to RDS High-availability Edition — upgrade a regular instance
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Upgrade a serverless instance to RDS High-availability Edition