Sign up for Aura

Getting started with Aura

Signing up for Neo4j Aura is a straightforward process that allows you to get started with a fully managed graph database in the cloud.

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

Create a Neo4j Aura account
Set up your first Aura Professional instance (recommended)

Using the Professional tier

While Aura offers a Free tier for experimentation, this course recommends starting with Aura Professional to access the full feature set. Professional includes a free trial period (7 days, extendable by an additional 7 days), allowing exploration of all capabilities without upfront costs.

Step 1: Visit the Neo4j Aura Website

Go to console.neo4j.io in your web browser, the official portal for managing Neo4j Aura databases.

On this page, you will see options to sign up for a new account or log in if you already have one.

Use the Sign Up button to create a new account.

Step 2: Create Your Account

After clicking the Sign Up button, you are directed to the registration form.

Enter your email address and complete the identity verification. A confirmation code is sent to your email address - enter this code to verify your email is valid and belongs to you.

Step 2b: Create a password

Once your email is verified, create a password for your account:

Step 2c: Onboarding

After setting up your password, you will be asked to provide some additional information, such as your name and company (if applicable). Fill in the required fields and click Next.

Step 3: Personalize Your Experience

After creating your account, you will be prompted to personalize your experience by selecting your interests and how you plan to use Neo4j Aura. This helps Neo4j tailor the experience to your needs.

After choosing your role, you will be asked to select your goals in Neo4j Aura, such as: Building an application, analyze data using graphs, learning Neo4j, or other options.

As you select your interests, you will see a graph getting built indicating how far along you are in the setup process, instead of a progress bar. Once you have made your selections, click Next to proceed.

Selecting the right location

When creating a new database instance, select the appropriate location for your instance.

For paid Aura tiers, choose from multiple cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) and regions within those providers. Aura Free is limited to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in the us-central1 region.

Location factors to consider

When selecting a region, consider these factors:

Application proximity: Where does your application run? Select the same region to minimize network latency.
Cloud provider alignment: Match your database provider with your application’s cloud provider for better network performance and simplified billing.
Data residency requirements: Some regulations require data to remain within specific geographic boundaries (e.g., GDPR for EU data).

Latency matters

Every network hop between your application and database adds latency. Placing both in the same cloud provider and region can reduce round-trip times from 50-100ms to under 5ms.

Step 4: Set Up Your First Aura Professional Instance

After setting up your account, you will be directed to the region and cloud provider selection page. In this example, you are learning about starting with Aura Professional to access the complete feature set.

Aura Professional includes:

Cloud provider choice: Deploy on AWS, GCP, or Azure
Region selection: Choose from multiple geographic regions to minimize latency
Flexible sizing: Scale memory and storage based on your workload
Daily automated backups: Restore your database to any point within the retention period
Pause/resume: Stop incurring costs when your instance is not in use
Full API access: Automate instance management programmatically

Click Start 14 days free trial to begin with Professional:

Understanding size requirements

When sizing a graph database, except for Aura Free, you need to consider two main components:

Storage size needs to be large enough to store all your nodes and relationships on disk, including their properties and any indexes.
Memory size needs to accommodate both your data and the transaction workload (Java heap space for query processing).

To determine the right size, you need to know the following about your database:

How many nodes and relationships?
How many properties in the nodes and relationships?
What type of data is stored as properties? (numbers, strings, etc.)
How many indexes are required?
Do you need to make use of any vector indexes?

Estimating size requirements

Unless all this information is available, estimate based on your best projections. Sizing is less critical for Aura since database instances are resizable through the Aura console with a few clicks.

For most Aura tiers, you must pick memory size (RAM) and memory / storage ratio (1/2, 1/4, 1/8).

A worked example

For example, if you pick 2GB memory, this corresponds to 4GB storage. Increase the storage to 8GB (1/4) or 16GB (1/8) at additional cost.

For Aura Free, size choices are hidden from you, but the database limits (200,000 nodes and 400,000 relationships) typically need between 3GB and 4GB of storage.

Sizing calculation

Visit the Capacity Planning Example for a detailed example of how to calculate the right size for your database.

Saving your credentials

You will be presented with a set of credentials that you will need to connect to your database. Make sure to save the credentials in a secure location.

Step 5: Access your Professional Aura Instance

Once your instance is set up, access it through the Neo4j Aura console. From here, manage your database, run queries, and monitor performance:

Aura console showing the new professional instance running

Professional instance landing page

After completing the setup, the Aura console displays your Getting Started page for your new Aura Professional instance:

Alternative: Free Tier Setup

If you chose the Free tier instead of Professional, here’s what to expect.

The Free tier provides a fixed configuration:

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in us-central1 region only
Maximum 200,000 nodes and 400,000 relationships
On-demand backups (hourly limit)
Automatic pause after 72 hours of inactivity

To access the Free tier, click "Select another instance" on the region selection page:

Selecting the AuraDB Free

After clicking the link, you will be directed to choose from a more comprehensive list of tiers, including the AuraDB Free. Under the AuraDB Free description, click on Select to proceed.

AuraDB Free setup

Once you have selected the AuraDB Free option, you will have access to a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) instance in the us-central1 region, and the UI will not prompt you for size or cloud provider options, as these are fixed for the AuraDB Free.

Your instance will be running continuously until you decide to delete it, with a limit of 200,000 nodes and 400,000 relationships:

Aura console showing the new free instance running

Upgrade from Free to Professional

Upgrade from Free to Professional at any time through the Aura console to unlock cloud provider choice, flexible sizing, and daily backups.

Summary

In this lesson, you learned how to sign up for a Neo4j Aura account and set up your first instance. You also learned about choosing the right location and sizing for your database.

For detailed sign-up instructions and account management, see the Neo4j Aura Getting Started documentation.

In the next lesson, you will learn about Aura costs and how to manage them effectively.

AuraDB Fundamentals

Introduction to Neo4j Aura

Getting Started

Tools

Operations