Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) vs. Couchbase Server

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon RDS
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) from Amazon Web Services.N/A
Couchbase Server
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Couchbase Server is a cloud-native, distributed database that fuses the strengths of relational databases such as SQL and ACID transactions with JSON flexibility and scale that defines NoSQL. It is available as a service in commercial clouds and supports hybrid and private cloud deployments.N/A
Pricing
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Couchbase Server
Editions & Modules
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL
$0.24 ($0.48)
per hour, R5 Large (R5 Extra Large)
Amazon RDS for MariaDB
$0.25 ($0.50)
per hour, R5 Large (R5 Extra Large)
Amazon RDS for MySQL
$0.29 ($0.58)
per hour, R5 Large (R5 Extra Large)
Amazon RDS for Oracle
$0.482 ($0.964)
per hour, R5 Large (R5 Extra Large)
Amazon RDS for SQL Server
$1.02 ($1.52)
per hour, R5 Large (R5 Extra Large)
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon RDSCouchbase Server
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Couchbase Server
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Couchbase Server
NoSQL Databases
Comparison of NoSQL Databases features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
-
Ratings
Couchbase Server
8.9
97 Ratings
1% above category average
Performance00 Ratings8.897 Ratings
Availability00 Ratings9.396 Ratings
Concurrency00 Ratings8.894 Ratings
Security00 Ratings8.994 Ratings
Scalability00 Ratings9.395 Ratings
Data model flexibility00 Ratings8.995 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility00 Ratings8.194 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Couchbase Server
Small Businesses
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Couchbase Server
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(128 ratings)
8.6
(100 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(5 ratings)
2.1
(3 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(5 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.2
(95 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(13 ratings)
8.5
(5 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(51 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Couchbase Server
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Amazon Relational Database Service is a perfect fit for everyone who is seeking for an high-performance cloud-based database service. No matter if Postgres, Oracle, or any other type of relational database. Amazon RDS is our first choice for any kind of database requirement in the cloud. Especially I like the scalability.
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Couchbase
Best suited when edge devices have interrupted internet connection. And Couchbase provides reliable data transfer. If used for attachment Couchbase has a very poor offering. A hard limit of 20 MB is not okay. They have the best conflict resolution but not so great query language on Couchbase lite.
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Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Automated Database Management: We use it for streamlining routine tasks like software patching and database backups.
  • Scalability on Demand: we use it to handle traffic spikes, scaling both vertically and horizontally.
  • Database Engine Compatibility: It works amazingly with multiple database engines used by different departments within our organization including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and Oracle.
  • Monitoring: It covers our extensive monitoring and logging, and also has great compatibility with Amazon CloudWatch
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Couchbase
  • Couchbase performance is exceptional both for in-memory and persisted transactions.
  • Handling of node failures and cluster rebalancing (high availability).
  • Enterprise support from Couchbase themselves
  • Good documentation
  • Streaming of bucket (database) level mutations via their Database Change Protocol (DCP).
  • Replication of datasets between native clients and Couchbase buckets
  • Handling of simultaneous writes to the same record with performance penalties
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Cons
Amazon AWS
  • It is a little difficult to configure and connect to an RDS instance. The integration with ECS can be made more seamless.
  • Exploring features within RDS is not very easy and intuitive. Either a human friendly documentation should be added or the User Interface be made intuitive so that people can explore and find features on their own.
  • There should be tools to analyze cost and minimize it according to the usage.
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Couchbase
  • The N1QL engine performs poorly compared to SQL engines due to the number of interactions needed, so if your use case involves the need for a lot of SQL-like query activity as opposed to the direct fetch of data in the form of a key/value map you may want to consider a RDBMS that has support for json data types so that you can more easily mix the use of relational and non-relational approaches to data access.
  • You have to be careful when using multiple capabilities (e.g. transactions with Sync Gateway) as you will typically run into problems where one technology may not operate correctly in combination with another.
  • There are quality problems with some newly released features, so be careful with being an early adopter unless you really need the capability. We somewhat desperately adopted the use of transactions, but went through multiple bughunt cycles with Couchbase working the kinks out.
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Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
We do renew our use of Amazon Relational Database Service. We don't have any problems faced with RDS in place. RDS has taken away lot of overhead of hosting database, managing the database and keeping a team just to manage database. Even the backup, security and recovery another overhead that has been taken away by RDS. So, we will keep on using RDS.
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Couchbase
I rarely actually use Couchbase Server, I just stay up-to-date with the features that it provides. However, when the need arises for a NoSQL datastore, then I will strongly consider it as an option
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Usability
Amazon AWS
I've been using AWS Relational Database Services in several projects in different environments and from the AWS products, maybe this one together to EC2 are my favourite. They deliver what they promise. Reliable, fast, easy and with a fair price (in comparison to commercial products which have obscure license agreements).
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Couchbase
Couchbase has been quite a usable for our implementation. We had similar experience with our previous "trial" implementation, however it was short lived.
Couchbase has so far exceeded expectation. Our implementation team is more confident than ever before.
When we are Live for more than 6 months, I'm hoping to enhance this rating.
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Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Couchbase
One of Couchbase’s greatest assets is its performance with large datasets. Properly set up with well-sized clusters, it is also highly reliable and scalable. User management could be better though, and security often feels like an afterthought. Couchbase has improved tremendously since we started using it, so I am sure that these issues will be ironed out.
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
I have only had good experiences in working with AWS support. I will admit that my experience comes from the benefit of having a premium tier of support but even working with free-tier accounts I have not had problems getting help with AWS products when needed. And most often, the docs do a pretty good job of explaining how to operate a service so a quick spin through the docs has been useful in solving problems.
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Couchbase
I haven't had many opportunities to request support, I will look forward to better the rating. We have technical development and integration team who reach out directly to TAM at Couchbase.
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Online Training
Amazon AWS
the online training & digital content available on the web from AWS was having sufficient information to deploy and run the service
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Couchbase
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
In a few words, we are just to confortable working with oracle and sql server. Using RDS add another layer of distributed database in order to backup everything we have in case of a disaster and also complies with authorities locally and internacionally. All database we use, are local in custom servers that we maintain, but we agree to expand this.
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Couchbase
The Apache Cassandra was one type of product used in our company for a couple of use-cases. The Aerospike is something we [analyzed] not so long time ago as an interesting alternative, due to its performance characteristics. The Oracle Coherence was and is still being used for [the] distributed caching use-case, but it will be replaced eventually by Couchbase. Though each of these products [has] its own strengths and weaknesses, we prefer sticking to Couchbase because of [the] experience we have with this product and because it is cost-effective for our organization.
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Scalability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Couchbase
So far, the way that we mange and upgrade our clusters has be very smooth. It works like a dream when we use it in concert with AWS and their EC2 machines. Having access to powerful instances along side the Couchbase interface is amazing and allows us to do rebalances or maintenance without a worry
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • RDS is costly and thus small business should avoid it as it might not be worthful (in ROI perspective)
  • Downtime is very low and there are automated backups thus we dont have to worry much about technical stuff and can focus more on marketing and sales
  • Due to various automated features such as automated backup etc we dont need a huge technical team thus reducing the cost of maintaining a huge technical team ,
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Couchbase
  • Great performance.
  • Leading Couchbase Lite capabilities for mobile use.
  • Developers' learning curve with replica reads and multi cluster can be long. Needs guidance and nurturing.
  • Cluster maintenance during OS patching, etc. has multiple ways to approach. Operational teams may need some guidance.
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ScreenShots

Amazon RDS Screenshots

Screenshot of A look inside the RDS console.