Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) vs. IBM Cloud Databases

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
IBM Cloud Databases
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Databases are open source data stores for enterprise application development. Built on a Kubernetes foundation, they offer a database platform for serverless applications. They are designed to scale storage and compute resources seamlessly without being constrained by the limits of a single server. Natively integrated and available in the IBM Cloud console, these databases are now available through a consistent consumption, pricing, and interaction model. They aim to provide a cohesive…N/A
Pricing
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)IBM Cloud Databases
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 RDSIBM Cloud Databases
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)IBM Cloud Databases
Considered Both Products
Amazon RDS
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
RDS has better security and is much more configurable, likewise more complex and not for inexperienced users.
IBM Cloud Databases
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
While at the time, Amazon RDS did/does not create Mongo databases, I was able to set up many with PostgreSQL databases with the same ease as IBM Compose. However, IBM compose does seem to offer a more intuitive application control panel. Amazon RDS costs run on a server …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
The reason why I choose IBM Cloud Databases is that the IBM cloud toolset is already being used in other functions of the company and by using IBM Cloud Databases, the other cloud tools are better embedded and integrated. If the company is set to use amazon tools, I would go …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
It was very easy to set up at the time with a few clicks to get a database set up and hooked into Heroku, one of the PaaS-s we're using.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
MongoDB is the primary db we use, and Meteor is the primary application framework. Configuring MongoDB to fully support Meteor oplog tailing is a challenge - and when we started looking, Compose was those only MongoDB provider that had turnkey support for Meteor.

Since we wanted …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
We use Amazon's RDS (MySQL database), Redislabs (Redis) and also MongoDB's Atlas. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. For us, MongoDB's Atlas and Compose are obviously similar services. For now, we use Atlas to try new things (since they run the latest stable …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)IBM Cloud Databases
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
-
Ratings
IBM Cloud Databases
7.3
93 Ratings
18% below category average
Automatic software patching00 Ratings8.477 Ratings
Database scalability00 Ratings8.487 Ratings
Automated backups00 Ratings6.990 Ratings
Database security provisions00 Ratings8.783 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings5.087 Ratings
Automatic host deployment00 Ratings6.369 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)IBM Cloud Databases
Small Businesses
Google Cloud SQL
Google Cloud SQL
Score 8.8 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.9 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.7 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP IQ
SAP IQ
Score 10.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)IBM Cloud Databases
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(130 ratings)
7.8
(95 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(5 ratings)
8.0
(7 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(7 ratings)
7.0
(6 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(13 ratings)
1.0
(10 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)IBM Cloud Databases
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.
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IBM
Less Appropriate Scenario: 1) Small Scale or Low Budget Projects 2) Organizations with limited expertise in cloud technologies may find the learning curve steep, especially if they are not familiar with the IBM Cloud platform 3) If database requirements are highly dynamic and change frequently, the comprehensive features and management provided by IBM Cloud Databases might be overkill. A more flexible, self-managed solution could be preferable for adapting to rapid changes.
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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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IBM
  • The ease of setup was effortless. For anyone with development experience, a few simple questions such as name and login data will get you set up.
  • The web application to manage cluster settings, billing settings and even introspect the data was simple and most importantly worked all the time. This can not always be said for web interfaces of other products.
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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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IBM
  • Better cost reports, before just increasing to another tier, thus increasing the price. This is critical for early stage startups, where budget is tight.
  • Add more data center options. As a comparison, a similar service, Aiven.io has dozen more options than Compose (basically all big cloud providers). We moved from AWS to Digital Ocean, which made us stop using Compose, since Compose forces us to be either on IBM or AWS.
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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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IBM
IBM is our trusted partner which never failed to meet our expectations. Stability, efficiency, usability and security is a must have for our business which is fully provided by IBM Cloud Databases
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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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IBM
It is great the only things I have stumbled upon is the non standard port 80 they use and sometimes expired SSL certificate.
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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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IBM
Support is helpful enough, but we haven't always had questions answered in a satisfactory manner. At one time we realized that Compose had stopped taking database snapshots on its two-per-day schedule, and had in fact not taken one for many days. Support recognized the problem and it was fixed, but the lack of proactive checks and the inability to share exactly what happened has caused us to look elsewhere for production work loads
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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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IBM
No answers on this topic
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.
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IBM
The reason why I choose IBM Cloud Databases is that the IBM cloud toolset is already being used in other functions of the company and by using IBM Cloud Databases, the other cloud tools are better embedded and integrated. If the company is set to use amazon tools, I would go for rds.
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.
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IBM
  • Prove use cases prior to administering entire platform, obtain ROI faster
  • Able to achieve the technological components of our advanced analytics team without full scale purchase of AI platform
  • Developed several studies to prove out cloud Db value, speed to deploy
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ScreenShots

Amazon RDS Screenshots

Screenshot of A look inside the RDS console.