Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) vs. Heroku Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon RDS
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) from Amazon Web Services.N/A
Heroku Platform
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
The Heroku Platform, now from Salesforce, is a platform-as-a-service based on a managed container system, with integrated data services and ecosystem for deploying modern apps. It takes an app-centric approach for software delivery, integrated with developer tools and workflows. It’s three main tool are: Heroku Developer Experience (DX), Heroku Operational Experience (OpEx), and Heroku Runtime. Heroku Developer Experience (DX) Developers deploy directly from tools like…
$85
per month
Pricing
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Heroku Platform
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)
Production
$25.00
per month
Advanced
$250.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon RDSHeroku Platform
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Heroku Platform
Considered Both Products
Amazon RDS
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Ultimately, after thorough evaluation and consideration of our specific requirements, we selected Amazon RDS as the most suitable managed database solution for our organization due to its robust features, seamless AWS integration, and compatibility with our existing …
Heroku Platform
Chose Heroku Platform
Heroku is much easier to get setup in and doesn't require strong DevOps knowledge. It's also a lot harder to mess up in.
Features
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Heroku Platform
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
-
Ratings
Heroku Platform
7.2
44 Ratings
8% below category average
Ease of building user interfaces00 Ratings6.027 Ratings
Scalability00 Ratings7.044 Ratings
Platform management overhead00 Ratings7.043 Ratings
Workflow engine capability00 Ratings6.030 Ratings
Platform access control00 Ratings7.043 Ratings
Services-enabled integration00 Ratings6.042 Ratings
Development environment creation00 Ratings9.039 Ratings
Development environment replication00 Ratings9.038 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification00 Ratings8.042 Ratings
Issue recovery00 Ratings7.039 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes00 Ratings7.044 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Heroku Platform
Small Businesses
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.0 out of 10
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.0 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP IQ
SAP IQ
Score 10.0 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Heroku Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(131 ratings)
7.0
(47 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(5 ratings)
9.5
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(8 ratings)
9.2
(17 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(13 ratings)
8.7
(19 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Heroku Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
If your application needs a relational data store and uses other AWS services, AWS RDS is a no-brainer. It offers all the traditional database features, makes it a snap to set up, creates cross-region replication, has advanced security, built-in monitoring, and much more at a very good price. You can also set up streaming to a data lake using various other AWS services on your RDS.
Read full review
Salesforce
Heroku is very well suited for startups looking to get a server stack up and running quickly. There is little to no overhead when managing your instances. However, you'll need a background in basic DevOps or system management to make sure everything is set up correctly. In addition, it's easy to accidentally go crazy on pricing. Make sure you're only creating the server instances you need to run the base application and set up an auto-scaler plugin to handle peaks.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Heroku has a very simple deployment model, making it easy to get your application up-and-running with minimal effort. We can focus on our efforts the unique aspects of our application.
  • The robust add-on marketplace makes it easy to try out new approaches with minimal effort and investment -- and when we settle on a solution, we can easily scale it.
  • Heroku's support is quite good -- their staff is quite technical and willing to get into the weeds to diagnose even complicated problems.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Large price jumps between certain resource tiers (2x Dyno for $50 per month versus Performance Dyno for $250). Free Postgres next jumps to $50 per month.
  • Marketing/Branding to non-technical stakeholders. As the years pass, I've had to fight more to convince stakeholders on the value of Heroku over AWS.
  • Improve Buildpack documentation. This is one area where Heroku's documentation is fairly confusing.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
Heroku is easy to use, services a ton of functions for you out of the box, and provides a means to get a software product off the ground and managed quickly and easily. The tools provide allows a small to medium size org to move very quickly. The CLI tools provided make managing an entire technical infrastructure simple.
Read full review
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).
Read full review
Salesforce
Easy to use web based console and easy to use command line tools; deployment is done directly from a GIT repository. What more could you ask for? The one thing that keeps me from giving it a 10 is that custom build packs are almost incomprehensible. We used one for a while because we needed cairo graphics processing. Fortunately, I was able to figure out a different way to do what we needed so that we could get off the custom build pack.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Heroku availability correlates pretty strongly to AWS US EAST availability. We had a couple of times where there was a Heroku-specific issue but not for the last 7-8 months.
Read full review
Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
The only issue that I ever have is that about 1 out of 20 deployments (git push) will hang and need to be cancelled and done again.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
I've used it for many years without facing any major problem. It's not hard at all to get used to it, it's documentation is outstanding and simple. We are close to 2020 and I don't think most of the existing companies or startups should still face old problems such as wasting time deploying code and calculate computing resources.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Be ready to pay a bit more than expected in the beginning if you're migrating from a big server. The application is probably not ready for the change and you have to keep improving it with time.
It's also important to consider that you can't save anything to the disc as it will be lost when your application restarts, so you have to think about using something like S3.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) stands out among similar products due to its seamless integration with other AWS services, automated backups, and multi-AZ deployments for high availability. Its support for various database engines, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle, provides flexibility. Additionally, RDS offers managed security features, including encryption and IAM integration, enhancing data protection. The pay-as-you-go pricing model makes it cost-effective. Overall, Amazon RDS excels in ease of use, scalability, and a comprehensive feature set, making it a top choice for organizations seeking a reliable and scalable managed relational database service in the cloud.
Read full review
Salesforce
Heroku is the more expensive option for hosting compared to some of the cloud platforms we investigated, but it's worth it for us because of the plug-and-play nature of Heroku deployment. We can be up and running in a few minutes and know with precision how much it will cost us each month to run the application, unlike Amazon Web Services where you have to go to great pains to configure it correctly or else you might end up with a shocking monthly bill. Overall, spending the time to configure Amazon Web Services or one of its competitors is likely the more affordable and powerful choice, because you have control over so many specifics of the configuration. But it also requires the burden of continuing to maintain and update your AWS instance, whereas with Heroku they take care of security fixes and platform upgrades. It's a great service and we are happy to pay the extra cost for the value-adds Heroku provides.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • The overall cost increases, but we spect this and we can mitigate other risks.
  • Is easy to work from the cloud. Is reliable, but we keep our local solution as well where RDS works quite good.
  • RDS allow us to focurs on owr objetives instead of the other matters regarding databases.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • It has been critical in seamlessly operating our platform with runs all of our programs.
  • It has been impressive with its ability to scale quickly which results in the growth of our work.
  • It allows for tracking of different features which allows for quick problem solving which saves us time.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Amazon RDS Screenshots

Screenshot of A look inside the RDS console.