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Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) vs. Microsoft Azure

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Amazon RDS

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/AAmazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) from Amazon Web Services.N/A

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.

    $29

    per month

    Pricing
    Amazon RDSMicrosoft Azure
    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)
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon RDSMicrosoft Azure
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details—The free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Amazon RDSMicrosoft Azure
    Considered Both Products
    Amazon AWS
    Chose Amazon RDS
    Amazon RDS provides more configuration ability, and also it's scalable and highly available for real-time response to the complex query.
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    102 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    98 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    102 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    99%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83 Answers
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    96 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    Features
    Amazon RDSMicrosoft Azure
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.126 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.624 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings8.926 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon RDSMicrosoft Azure
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    Score7.5 out of 10
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    Score9 out of 10
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    Score8.2 out of 10
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    Score8.7 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    Amazon RDSMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (130 ratings)
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    8.8
    (8 ratings)
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.6
    (13 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon RDSMicrosoft Azure
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
    • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
    • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
    • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
    • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
    • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
    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).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
    Incentivized
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
    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
    Microsoft
    As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
    • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
    • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Amazon RDS Screenshots

    Screenshot of A look inside the RDS console.