Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) vs. PostgreSQL

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon RDS
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) from Amazon Web Services.N/A
PostgreSQL
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
PostgreSQL (alternately Postgres) is a free and open source object-relational database system boasting over 30 years of active development, reliability, feature robustness, and performance. It supports SQL and is designed to support various workloads flexibly.N/A
Pricing
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)PostgreSQL
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 RDSPostgreSQL
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)PostgreSQL
Considered Both Products
Amazon RDS
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
The only direct comparison that I have professionally would be from a past life where we ran Microsoft SQL Server on Microsoft Servers, and while I served as a technical liaison between a vendor and my customers, there were constant issues within my customers' technical teams …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
We needed to use PostgreSQL due to it being the database engine that our application vendor uses. Once we were constrained on the database engine choice then Microsoft products (eg. SQL Server), whether on premise or in the cloud, were not appropriate. Therefore the only …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Deploying PostgreSQL by yourself may appear easy at first but running a production PostgreSQL cluster with millions of records is a hard task, especially for compliance, scalability, and security. RDS automates all complex tasks so you can focus on building your database schema …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
With the latest serverless technology Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) has an edge over all its competitors, it works really fast with high log retention.
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
There are a lot of factor we took into consideration the most important ones are: Ease of use and setup - Compared to other similar options Amazon RDS is very easy to setup just clicking few options and its ready for POC and for production very easy and flexible Terraform …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
RDS seems to be the best cross-section between cost, availability, deployment and throughput.
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Even though Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is costlier than postgre SQL, We prefer Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) just because of high performance and security features
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
It is more suitable for our data structure and also has a lower management and implementation cost since we don`t have to do everything from scratch. It also offers great integration with other AWS services which makes it really good to work with.
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
The database are the same. just the managed part is easy as is performed by Amazons
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
We used to have On-Premises servers with Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL databases. We used that for years, and we had a hard time and a lot of work involved in securing and updating the server. And not no mention that growth involves a lot of calculations and extra costs. …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
I selected AWS RDS over Azure because of the [number] of products AWS has that work together. The cost for RDS was cheaper than Azure's SQL also. I use Azure for MSSQL workloads and AWS for MySQL workloads. Probably the main reason was we wanted to use S3 and Azure doesn't have …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Actually you can have most of these tools through AWS Relational Database Service as they are basically those technologies provided as a service. It is way better to have those products provided as a service through a huge and reliable infrastructure like AWS.
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
It's hard to identify how Amazon RDS stacks up against the databases they support, because to install and use a relational database in a production environment you need a Database Administrator to help install, configure and manage. Amazon RDS keeps the details simple enough …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
RDS implements the databases we were interested in and allows us to focus on the application and not the management. AWS handles setting up the server and the database as well as upgrading the software when necessary. Security is simple, using security groups to allow or deny …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Amazon Relational Database Service will probably give you everything you need from a traditional manual DB setup, except everything is managed for you. The only downside is having to pay the premium for the service; however, the trade-off of not having to deal with the …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Automated snap-shotting every 24 hours is, again something that I could just set up in minutes with a few clicks, though we also backup on cron jobs to elsewhere, and, because of our industry we have a HUGE "forensic logs" that initially live in the database but get archived …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Redshift is massively scalable but has some limitations that we weren't willing to accept (no JSONB). It also has its own distinct flavor of SQL, and there isn't as much content online about Redshift's flavor of SQL versus postgres'. In the end, we just didn't need to kind of …
Chose Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Much less administration overhead with RDS.
PostgreSQL
Chose PostgreSQL
I found PostgreSQL to be better compared to MySQL. The community support is very good. Some features that I feel are not present in MySQL are:
  • No referential integrity.
  • No constraints (CHECK).
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User Ratings
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)PostgreSQL
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(131 ratings)
8.0
(55 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(5 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(8 ratings)
8.3
(9 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(13 ratings)
9.3
(7 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)PostgreSQL
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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
PostgreSQL is best used for structured data, and best when following relational database design principles. I would not use PostgreSQL for large unstructured data such as video, images, sound files, xml documents, web-pages, especially if these files have their own highly variable, internal structure.
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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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
  • It works well with external data sources and runs on platforms with stable performance.
  • Clients can rest assured that their personal information will be safe and secure.
  • Many forums discuss setup and usage, and most are free.
  • Adding tooling applications to a computer is unlimited.
  • PostgreSQL runs on many OS platforms and supports ANSI SQL, stored procedures, and triggers.
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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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
  • Clearer indications on what is the query plan, to optimize the query
  • More out of the box, Postgres specific, SQL functions
  • It would be nice to have a more visual aid of the relationship between all tables, but possibly this depend more on the UI used
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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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
As a needed software for day to day development activities
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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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
Postgresql is the best tool out there for relational data so I have to give it a high rating when it comes to analytics, data availability and consistency, so on and so forth. SQL is also a relatively consistent language so when it comes to building new tables and loading data in from the OLTP database, there are enough tools where we can perform ETL on a scalable basis.
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Reliability and Availability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
PostgreSQL Global Development Group
PostgreSQL's availability is top notch. Apart from connection time-out for an idle user, the database is super reliable.
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Performance
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
PostgreSQL Global Development Group
The data queries are relatively quick for a small to medium sized table. With complex joins, and a wide and deep table however, the performance of the query has room for improvement.
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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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
There are several companies that you can contract for technical support, like EnterpriseDB or Percona, both first level in expertise and commitment to the software.
But we do not have contracts with them, we have done all the way from googling to forums, and never have a problem that we cannot resolve or pass around. And for dozens of projects and more than 15 years now.
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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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
The online training is request based. Had there been recorded videos available online for potential users to benefit from, I could have rated it higher. The online documentation however is very helpful. The online documentation PDF is downloadable and allows users to pace their own learning. With examples and code snippets, the documentation is great starting point.
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Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
PostgreSQL Global Development Group
The online documentation of the PostgreSQL product is elaborate and takes users step by step.
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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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
Although the competition between the different databases is increasingly aggressive in the sense that they provide many improvements, new functionalities, compatibility with complementary components or environments, in some cases it requires that it be followed within the same family of applications that performs the company that develops it and that is not all bad, but being able to adapt or configure different programs, applications or other environments developed by third parties apart is what gives PostgreSQL a certain advantage and this diversification in the components that can be joined with it, is the reason why it is a great option to choose.
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Scalability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
PostgreSQL Global Development Group
The DB is reliable, scalable, easy to use and resolves most DB needs
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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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PostgreSQL Global Development Group
  • Easy to administer so our DevOps team has only ever used minimal time to setup, tune, and maintain.
  • Easy to interface with so our Engineering team has only ever used minimal time to query or modify the database. Getting the data is straightforward, what we do with it is the bigger concern.
  • It's free. You can't beat that.
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ScreenShots

Amazon RDS Screenshots

Screenshot of A look inside the RDS console.