Backup and restore limitations at scale

9/10 Critical

DynamoDB does not support native backup and restore functionality, which becomes extremely problematic at scale. Unable to back up large datasets (e.g., 100TB) was a significant reason why companies like Timehop migrated away from DynamoDB.

DynamoDB
Category
storage
Workaround
none
Stage
deploy
Freshness
persistent
Scope
single_lib
Upstream
wontfix
Recurring
Yes
Buyer Type
enterprise

Sources

Collection History

Query: “What are the most common pain points with DynamoDB for developers in 2025?”4/5/2026

At this point, we haven't even touched on the issue of backups and restores — something DynamoDB doesn't support natively and which gets awfully tricky at scale. The inability to back up 100TB of DynamoDB data was apparently a big reason why Timehop recently moved off the service altogether.

Created: 4/5/2026Updated: 4/5/2026