Amazon DynamoDB vs. Azure SQL Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon DynamoDB
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Amazon DynamoDB is a cloud-native, NoSQL, serverless database service.
$0
capacity unit per hour
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
Amazon DynamoDBAzure SQL Database
Editions & Modules
Provisioned - Read Operation
$0.00013
capacity unit per hour
Provisioned - Write Operation
$0.00065
capacity unit per hour
Provisioned - Global Tables
$0.000975
per Read Capacity
On-Demand Streams
$0.02
per 100,000 read operations
Provisioned - Streams
$0.02
per 100,000 read operations
On-Demand Data Requests Outside AWS Regions
$0.09
per GB
Provisioned - Data Requests Outside AWS Regions
$0.09
per GB
On-Demand Snapshot
$0.10
per GB per month
Provisioned - Snapshot
$0.10
per GB per month
On-Demand Restoring a Backup
$0.15
per GB
Provisioned - Restoring a Backup
$0.15
per GB
On-Demand Point-in-Time Recovery
$0.20
per GB per month
Provisioned - Point-in-Time Recovery
$0.20
per GB per month
On-Demand Read Operation
$0.25
per million requests
On-Demand Data Stored
$0.25
per GB per month
Provisioned - Data Stored
$0.25
per GB per month
On-Demand - Write Operation
$1.25
per million requests
On-Demand Global Tables
$1.875
per million write operations replicated
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon DynamoDBAzure SQL Database
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon DynamoDBAzure SQL Database
Considered Both Products
Amazon DynamoDB
Chose Amazon DynamoDB
MongoDB has some performance issues and can get corrupted from time to time and has needed to be rebuilt. We have not had that experience while using DynamoDB.
Chose Amazon DynamoDB
Dynamo DB is definitely more efficient and able to be configured easier than both. I just would say you have to know what you are doing with SQL as well. Because if you don’t know anything about SQL, you could always use Dynamo DB to help store your big data.
Chose Amazon DynamoDB
I didn't select it over MongoDB or Azure DocumentDB. In fact, we use all three. We let the developers make the choice.
Azure SQL Database

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Amazon DynamoDBAzure SQL Database
NoSQL Databases
Comparison of NoSQL Databases features of Product A and Product B
Amazon DynamoDB
9.2
70 Ratings
5% above category average
Azure SQL Database
-
Ratings
Performance9.269 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability9.470 Ratings00 Ratings
Concurrency8.868 Ratings00 Ratings
Security9.070 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability9.469 Ratings00 Ratings
Data model flexibility8.567 Ratings00 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility10.023 Ratings00 Ratings
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Amazon DynamoDB
-
Ratings
Azure SQL Database
9.2
27 Ratings
5% above category average
Automatic software patching00 Ratings8.125 Ratings
Database scalability00 Ratings10.027 Ratings
Automated backups00 Ratings9.927 Ratings
Database security provisions00 Ratings9.027 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings9.026 Ratings
Automatic host deployment00 Ratings9.022 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon DynamoDBAzure SQL Database
Small Businesses
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon DynamoDBAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(80 ratings)
9.1
(27 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(34 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(44 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.3
(4 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(44 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon DynamoDBAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
It’s great for server less and real-time applications. It would be great for gaming and mobile apps. However, if you need relational database and have fixed budget, do not use it. While budget can be managed, you need to be careful. Also this is not a tool for storing big data, there are other wide-column database types you could use for it ins the ad
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Microsoft
Your upcoming app can be built faster on a fully managed SQL database and can be moved into Azure with a few to no application code changes. Flexible and responsive server less computing and Hyperscale storage can cope with your changing requirements and one of the main benefits is the reduction in costs, which is noticeable.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • To manage varying workloads, it enables users to increase capacity as necessary and decrease it as needed.
  • Users can take advantage of its auto-scaling, in-memory caching, and backup without paying for the services of a database administrator.
  • We can use it for low scale operations.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Maintenance is always an issue, so using a cloud solution saves a lot of trouble.
  • On premise solutions always suffer from fragmented implementations here and there, where several "dba's" keep track of security and maintenance. With a cloud database it's much easier to keep a central overview.
  • Security options in SQL database are next level... data masking, hiding sensitive data where always neglected on premise, whereas you'll get this automatically in the cloud.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Cost model may not be easy to control and may lead to higher costs if not carefully planned
  • Indexing may be a cost culprit when not planned, because it's not included on the data costs
  • The Query Language may not fulfill everybody's expectations, as it has less features than those of competitors.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • One needs to be aware that some T-SQL features are simply not available.
  • The programmatic access to server, trace flags, hardware from within Azure SQL Database is taken away (for a good reason).
  • No SQL Agent so your jobs need to be orchestrated differently.
  • The maximum concurrent logins maybe an unexpected problem.
  • Sudden disconnects.
  • The developers and admin must study the capacity and tier usage limits https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-subscription-service-limits otherwise some errors or even transaction aborts never seen before can occur.
  • Only one Latin Collation choice.
  • There is no way to debug T-SQL ( a big drawback in my point of view).
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
It's core to our business, we couldn't survive without it. We use it to drive everything from FTP logins to processing stories and delivering them to clients. It's reliable and easy to query from all of our pipeline services. Integration with things like AWS Lambda makes it easy to trigger events and run code whenever something changes in the database.
Read full review
Microsoft
This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
Functionally, DynamoDB has the features needed to use it. The interface is not as easy to use, which impacts its usability. Being familiar with AWS in general is helpful in understanding the interface, however it would be better if the interface more closely aligned with traditional tools for managing datastores.
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Performance
Amazon AWS
It works very well across all the regions and response time is also very quick due to AWS's internal data transfer. Plus if your product requires HIPPA or some other regulations needs to be followed, you can easily replicate the DB into multiple regions and they manage all by it's own.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
I have not had to contact support for this service, however I have had to contact AWS for other services and their support has been good.
Read full review
Microsoft
We give the support a high rating simply because every time we've had issues or questions, representatives were in contact with us quickly. Without fail, our issues/questions were handled in a timely matter. That kind of response is integral when client data integrity and availability is in question. There is also a wealth of documentation for resolving issues on your own.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
The only thing that can be compared to DynamoDB from the selected services can be Aurora. It is just that we use Aurora for High-Performance requirements as it can be 6 times faster than normal RDS DB. Both of them have served as well in the required scenario and we are very happy with most of the AWS services.
Read full review
Microsoft
We moved away from Oracle and NoSQL because we had been so reliant on them for the last 25 years, the pricing was too much and we were looking for a way to cut the cord. Snowflake is just too up in the air, feels like it is soon to be just another line item to add to your Azure subscription. Azure was just priced right, easy to migrate to and plenty of resources to hire to support/maintain it. Very easy to learn, too.
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Scalability
Amazon AWS
I have taken one point away due to its size limits. In case the application requires queries, it becomes really complicated to read and write data. When it comes to extremely large data sets such as the case in my company, a third-party logistics company, where huge amount of data is generated on a daily basis, even though the scalability is good, it becomes difficult to manage all the data due to limits.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Some developers see DynamoDB and try to fit problems to it, instead of picking the best solution for a given problem. This is true of any newer tool that people are trying to adopt.
  • It has allowed us to add more scalability to some of our systems.
  • As with any new technology there was a ramp up/rework phase as we learned best practices.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Perfect for small and medium databases, being very cost effective.
  • As a Platform as a Service, there is no concern about patches, upgrades and end of life.
  • Be aware of security and network capabilities. The service cannot run in the VNET as Azure Virtual Machines do.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Amazon DynamoDB Screenshots

Screenshot of Amazon DynamoDB in the AWS Console