Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) vs. Azure SQL Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon RDS
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) from Amazon Web Services.N/A
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Azure SQL Database
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)
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon RDSAzure SQL Database
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)Azure SQL Database
Considered Both Products
Amazon RDS
Chose Amazon RDS
AWS RDS supports many engines and is more efficient than just MySQL.
Chose Amazon RDS
It was based on previous experience and a few things that are good about AWS, like S3 and Lambda, the ease of integrating AWS's in-house services, and, of course, support. So, our organization has decided to use AWS.
Chose Amazon RDS
The AWS relational database service was selected because at the early stages of the implementation of the company product the team didn't have a lot of experience in creating and configuring database inside the company cluster, but there was a need to have a relation database, …
Chose Amazon RDS
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 …
Chose Amazon RDS
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, …
Chose Amazon 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 RDS
RDS Provides broader range of database engine. Well integration capabilities with third party makes it unique
Chose Amazon RDS
With products like Google Cloud SQL, Azure SQL Database, AWS RDS stacks up quite well in all features. Features like licensing, performance, security comes to my mind the most. Another aspect is AWS's global reach.
Chose Amazon 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 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 RDS
Amazon RDS supports a wider range of database engines, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and Amazon Aurora (MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible) than Google Cloud SQL. When compared to Google Cloud SQL, AWS provides a larger global footprint with …
Chose Amazon RDS
Mongodb is nosql database and some clients prefer it. In our presentation we try to persuade them to use RDS with its pros and cons. The type of selection depends upon the actual need.
Chose Amazon RDS
Although the Rackspace service is not comparable, even though it is very good, it requires a lot of administration on my part.
Regarding Atlas, although it is not the same as RDS in terms of provisioning and administration panel, I mention it because I found it simpler and more …
Chose Amazon RDS
Previously used Media Temple database hosting (now GoDaddy). While that endeavor was also successful, the AWS RDS is more secure, with higher availability and better documentation.
Chose Amazon RDS
We have a strong preference for AWS managed services, and we find that RDS offers excellent integration with various AWS services, making it a seamless choice for our infrastructure. Furthermore, RDS supports integration with automation tools such as Terraform, enhancing our …
Chose Amazon RDS
The main area that stuck out to me in looking at AWS RDS compared to Azure Data Lake Storage was still that RDS is simple to get up and running with over its competitors. The only negative and it holds true for both solutions is that can both be hard to estimate cost control …
Chose Amazon RDS
RDS seems to be the best cross-section between cost, availability, deployment and throughput.
Chose Amazon RDS
Also ElephantSQL. Not as cost effective, but more integrated into our cloud environment.
Chose Amazon RDS
During the migration from MySQL installed on Linux to AWS RDS, we were almost surprised as it was done by few clicks rather than too much configurations ans steps in case of traditional DB migrations. In no time our platform was up and running.
Chose Amazon RDS
Installing, configuring, and managing Oracle Database can be challenging, especially for people who are new to Oracle products. Longer learning curves and higher operational overhead can be caused by this complexity. Amazon Relational Database Service is easy to understand and …
Chose Amazon RDS
We consider initially only to have the back up product. After analysing different products, we realize that we needed a more complete and robust product such as Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). Then, the option to hire Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) was …
Chose Amazon RDS
1: If your company is already deeply involved in the AWS ecosystem, such as AWS Lambda, Amazon S3, or Amazon Redshift, leveraging Amazon RDS might result in a more seamless integration of services. AWS offers a broad set of cloud services, which makes it easier to design and …
Chose Amazon RDS
Amazon RDS excels with its widely adopted and mature ecosystem, supporting various database engines. While Azure SQL Database offers a tiered pricing structure and automatic patching, and Cloud SQL provides straightforward pricing and easy scaling, Amazon RDS's extensive …
Azure SQL Database
Chose Azure SQL Database
Better and more useful automation tools are available. Better at scaling and hosting your data. Greater security around access of data and encrypting where required. Allows for seamless integration in other Azure solutions which allows for greater flexibility when using the …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Depending on the use case they stack up very well. Google and AWS are well suited multi-cloud strategies or those that need a high level of RDS performance.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Mainly response time. Azure SQL Database is very fast and very reliable when it comes to executing queries and gathering the data results. Also, the exporting options it gives are far exceeding expectations and enable users to accommodate any deliverable in a timely and …
Chose Azure SQL Database
I selected Azure SQL because it integrates nicely with the technology stacks we currently maintain. The pricing is right, and clients are happy with that. Scaling is easy. Most of our clients don't want to maintain a full-blown database server, and they don't need one. For …
Chose Azure SQL Database
We have selected it because we are using Azure Cloud and it is the best option for us to go ahead with Azure SQL Database.
Chose Azure SQL Database
The simplicity and great features and good support of Microsoft as well as the more reasonable flexible price than other competitors is one of the important reasons for choosing it.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Oracle database is "the" serious database. There really is no competition in that field. SQL Database would be a serious competitor through the ease of implementation and the "no maintenance," but since it's too expensive for "normal" use (medium to small applications), it just …
Chose Azure SQL Database
We looked at Google Cloud SQL and Amazon RDS services, but we did not want to switch to a different structure from the system we currently use.
Chose Azure SQL Database
It is very easy to setup SQL database on Azure. one can always refer to their documentation for best practices. It is highly available and scalable. It is cheaper than its alternatives and provide better performance than others. As we are using many other services of Azure for …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Amazon RDS for SQL Server is the best example to compare with Azure SQL Database since both provide a Microsoft SQL Engine to host your databases.

Amazon RDS for SQL is much more compatible with your on-premises databases than Azure SQL, the reason is that Amazon RDS for SQL …
Chose Azure SQL Database
The Azure SQL Database, compared to our on premise SQL server installation, is much easier to use in terms of seeing database diagnostics. There is a whole visualization platform that comes with the tool that will allow your database administrator to see what jobs are tying up …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Amazon's RDS offering is actually very good and is used in other parts of the company, we just have a lot of Azure experience so wanted to leverage that.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL has a slight advantage over its rivals because it's developed by Microsoft, so it is well suited to professionals.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Being able to manage our databases in the cloud, scale quickly, and only require access to VMs made choosing Azure a no-brainer over a traditional SQL Server installation/integration. We don't have the budget or resources to integrate and maintain servers on our own, so using …
Chose Azure SQL Database
I would say MySQL in either Aurora or MariaDB form come close however, Azure SQL Database has a more streamlined approach to delivering a consistent programmability model, supported drivers and feature set.
Azure SQL Database T-SQL is advantageous and more complete than SQL …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Azure owned by Microsoft who owned SQL Server, so provided a variety of tools for easy migration/transition and from on-premises to the cloud; and management. I recommend using Azure for any on-prem SQL server databases.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Very similar product. Our company preferred to remain in the Microsoft Software Suite.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL is a clear upgrade to SQL Server 2012 and pretty much has the advantage with all the extra features that it has. Security, queries, exporting tables, T-SQL has all improved. Transitioning 18+ years of an in-house database to the cloud was a struggle, but for the …
Chose Azure SQL Database
We moved away from Oracle and NoSQL because we had been so reliant on them for the last 25 years, the pricing was too much and we were looking for a way to cut the cord. Snowflake is just too up in the air, feels like it is soon to be just another line item to add to your Azure …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Amazon Relational Database Service is the other obvious competitor. We were already in Azure, so it's not a serious contender for our business due to that bias already, but I do personally find the marketing and documentation of RDS more intimidating to sort through.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Comparing with Amazon Aurora: Azure SQL DB is 100% compatible with SQL Server and Aurora is compatible with MySQL and PostGreSQL. Because of if, SQL DB suits large enterprises with hundreds of databases better.
Comparing with Oracle: the main issue is that Oracle will try to …
Chose Azure SQL Database
It reduces the business cost as it provides large storage capacity with massive speed. Data security is primary benefit which this product gives me.
Chose Azure SQL Database
It stacks up in different ways, for the most part, I think Microsoft is doing a really good job versus the competition. They basically started database type products from the beginning. I've always been excited about updates and can see their progress over time. Get's me really …
Features
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Azure SQL Database
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
-
Ratings
Azure SQL Database
7.3
Ratings
14% below category average
Automatic software patching00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Database scalability00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Automated backups00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Database security provisions00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Automatic host deployment00 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Azure SQL Database
Small Businesses
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Score 8.1 out of 10
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Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 8.1 out of 10
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Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 6.0 out of 10
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Score 7.4 out of 10
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User Ratings
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Azure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Azure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Your upcoming app can be built faster on a fully managed SQL database and can be moved into Azure with a few to no application code changes. Flexible and responsive server less computing and Hyperscale storage can cope with your changing requirements and one of the main benefits is the reduction in costs, which is noticeable.
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Pros
  • 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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  • Scalability is #1: if it used to be an almost no-win endeavour to try to modernize your server or migrate to other hardware, with Azure SQL Database it becomes a press of a button.
  • All the tools simply work after you are on Azure SQL Database.
  • The applications do not need changes in order to start using Azure SQL Database.
  • Hybrid Cloud scenarios will work.
  • Clustering and failover - already there.
  • You can start monitoring the use and extract performance insights in a new way in Azure.
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Cons
  • 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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  • A little slow on processing complex or large Views. We use a lot of Views to feed our BI system, and the processing time could see some improvement, IMHO.
  • Additional monitoring components would be nice too, automating some built in performance measurement tools would be a nice feature.
  • Price can always be improved as well. It’s not bad, but room for improvement.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
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Usability
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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The interfaces are intuitive once you are familiar with all the functions. The ability to use different tools to interact with the platform, such as directly via a browser or code editors such as VS Code or Visual Studio is a great option and allows for integrating withn the project and other testing and developing tools.
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Support Rating
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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We give the support a high rating simply because every time we've had issues or questions, representatives were in contact with us quickly. Without fail, our issues/questions were handled in a timely matter. That kind of response is integral when client data integrity and availability is in question. There is also a wealth of documentation for resolving issues on your own.
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Online Training
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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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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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I selected Azure SQL because it integrates nicely with the technology stacks we currently maintain. The pricing is right, and clients are happy with that. Scaling is easy. Most of our clients don't want to maintain a full-blown database server, and they don't need one. For them, Azure SQL is the right size.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • 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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  • Positive: very easy implementation!
  • Positive: finally a good (easy) implementation of data masking, something we always neglected on premise.
  • Positive: no maintenance!! No "server is down" messages on your phone at 3 'o clock in the morning.
  • Negative: Too expensive to use for all other scenario's than a few very important applications.
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ScreenShots

Amazon RDS Screenshots

Screenshot of A look inside the RDS console.