Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) vs. Amazon SimpleDB

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
Amazon SimpleDB
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Amazon SimpleDB is a non-relational data store and service.
$0
per GB allowance
Pricing
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Amazon SimpleDB
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)
Machine Utilization
$0.00 for first 25 hours $0.14 per machine hour over 25 hours
per GB allowance
Structured Data Storage
$0.00 for first GB-month $0.25 per GB-month thereafter
per GB allowance
Free Tier
25 SimpleDB Machine Hours and 1 GB of Storage for free each month
per GB allowance
Data Transfer
All data transfer in is $0.00 per GB
per GB allowance
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon RDSAmazon SimpleDB
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Amazon SimpleDB
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Amazon SimpleDB
Small Businesses
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.8 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Amazon SimpleDB
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(128 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(13 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)Amazon SimpleDB
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Amazon Relational Database Service is a perfect fit for everyone who is seeking for an high-performance cloud-based database service. No matter if Postgres, Oracle, or any other type of relational database. Amazon RDS is our first choice for any kind of database requirement in the cloud. Especially I like the scalability.
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Amazon AWS
Well suited for: Games, Chat rooms, real time software like corporate events, marathons and so. Anytime and anywhere you could use a NoSQL DB you should think of SimpleDB.
As an arduous AWS user, Amazon SimpleDB easily integrates with EC2 and other AWS module; and if you are not an AWS user, you also have a fantastic tool that will solve the problem for which you are focused.
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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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Amazon AWS
  • Flexibility
  • Easy to learn and use
  • AWS integration
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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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Amazon AWS
  • Non AWS environments
  • Strict storage limit (but well we have DynamoDB for storage issues)
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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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Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
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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Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
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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Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
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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Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
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, are local in custom servers that we maintain, but we agree to expand this.
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Amazon AWS
It integrates beautifully with AWS. In some projects we use SimpleDB while we use DynamoDB for others, according to the characteristics of the project. If the infrastructure is AWS, we always think of one of them.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • RDS is costly and thus small business should avoid it as it might not be worthful (in ROI perspective)
  • Downtime is very low and there are automated backups thus we dont have to worry much about technical stuff and can focus more on marketing and sales
  • Due to various automated features such as automated backup etc we dont need a huge technical team thus reducing the cost of maintaining a huge technical team ,
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Amazon AWS
  • Reduced database administration time
  • Reduced data model analysis time
  • Lower cost of resources in projects in general
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ScreenShots

Amazon RDS Screenshots

Screenshot of A look inside the RDS console.