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Filter 101 vetted Amazon RDS reviews and ratings
Reviews (1-25 of 37)
May 12, 2020
Your DBA will be glad that you're using RDS
Amazon RDS is our default solution for running databases in the cloud. RDS provides the data layer for our web applications that require data persistence. RDS is widely used by application development teams throughout the company. RDS allows us to rapidly deploy databases, operate them in a manner that is generally hands off, and with extended features like Amazon Aurora, take advantage of capabilities like automatic backups, multi-AZ read replicas, and simple failovers.
- For engineers with experience managing databases, setup is simple. And for the uninitiated, the RDS console interface becomes intuitive with some practice.
- Not having the maintain the underlying infrastructure is a great benefit of using RDS. Patching and backups can be scheduled from the console and from then on are pretty much automated.
- Right-sizing the DB instance to perform optimally with an application can be a very simple procedure. If a DB instance is not struggling to keep up, the instance size can be scaled up with just a few clicks.
- Baseline configurations are generally sane for most RDS instances. This allows novice developers and engineers to get the most out of the service without being a complete database administrator.
- Experienced DBAs may find RDS limiting in some areas. There is no direct access to the underlying servers so OS level tweaks may be out of bounds.
- Getting logs from a database can be a challenge. Other services may need to be turned on (CloudWatch, for example) to get access logging, etc.
- While rudimentary logging is included with RDS, users must pay a premium to get more in depth logs (in particular, fine grained logging in terms of events per minute). This is not a bad thing, since you get what you pay for, but some users find it annoying to have to pay extra for metrics with higher fidelity.
- Online training
- in-person training
- no training
February 12, 2020
A to Z, EZ PZ to use and as flexible as the Amazon marketplace.
Amazon Relational Database Service is used for spinning up test scenarios or alpha test of products. In addition, it's utilized for creating environments that may or may not be used in the long term. Excellent product for its flexibility, and lack of need for long term capital expenditures or commitments. Easy to utilize and purchase. It's a very friendly platform to use in agile environments, or in organizations that are in either an early startup mode, or rapid growth/expansion phase.
- Ease of use.
- Flexibility without excessive commitment.
- Slightly pricier than some options.
- Name brand of Amazon is good in some industries, less positive in others.
March 18, 2020
Amazon Relational Database Service review
The project required many small instances across different regions and departments of our organization.
- scalable
- automated backups
- managed services
- additional price for managed services
- not flexible pricing model based on storage and CPU
- very basic monitoring metrics
March 04, 2020
RDS is great for your company
Instead of having our database servers in house, we decided to use the cloud for managing the servers. Our costs have come down with this and it's so easy to spin up a new database instance. Besides this, as we use several AWS technology we can control it with other services such as CloudWatch or Lambda.
- Easy to use.
- Not expensive.
- Flexible.
- Parameter groups are sometimes confusing at the moment of editing.
- Just supports certain amount of databases.
September 27, 2019
Truly fully-managed: Database made easy
We use AWS RDS to manage our MySQL and PostgreSQL databases without having to worry about issues like replication error, hardware failure or logs(general, slow, error) analysis. It is being used primarily by the database team but indirectly a lot of teams use RDS. Since RDS manages a lot of tasks for us, it frees us to focus on the business side of things.
- Create snapshots on schedule or whenever required: RDS gives you the freedom to take manual snapshots at will or configure a backup policy wherein you can specify the time when the backup would be taken and the number of such automated backups to retain. You can restore a backup very easily whenever required with a few clicks.
- Monitoring: RDS comes with a lot of metrics like CPU utilization, free storage, freeable memory and read/write latency that you can create alarms on to make sure you can quickly resolve an issue.
- Failover: If you have a multi-AZ RDS set-up, failover is done automatically when the primary instance fails. This minimizes downtime
- Point-in-time-restore: With RDS, you can sort of time travel, creating a new instance and restoring the database state to a point in time in the past.
- Logs: The general, slow, error and audit logs can be published to CloudWatch for better analysis with a few clicks.
- There should be a proper listing of all parameter groups alongside the instances that they are attached to. This would help to see which instances would be affected if a parameter group is changed.
- RDS should allow SUPER privilege to the master user. A few advanced tasks(like getting a physical backup using MySQL Enterprise Backup) fail because SUPER privilege is not available for the master user.
- A few parameters are not modifiable in the parameter groups and the access to the server filesystem is not given. This should not be the case because as an advanced user, you might want to understand things a little deeper.
RDS is being used in a ton of different ways, however it shines best for use in conjunction with Elasticsearch and providing the endpoint a writable position that we don't have to manage. Being multizone it allows for it to always be up and working; also since backups are automatic, it takes off that overhead of our engineering team.
- Automatic backups
- Multi-zone
- Completely managed service
- One thing I'd love to have is the ability to run actual SQL commands on it from the command line with typical SQL workbench type tools.
September 10, 2019
AWS RDS - Let a huge part of database complexity to be handled by AWS at a fair price.
At my current organization, we are using Amazon Relational Databases as our first option databases, supporting our DevOps environment. Currently, our monitoring system (based on Zabbix) and our configuration management system (based on Puppet) are using it as the main database. In our team, all databases are being based on AWS RDS PostgreSQL so far.
- AWS products on average, excel at high availability. RDS is a good example of that.
- Easy scaling. Just a few clicks.
- Load balancing in a transparent way.
- Sometimes you can't install specific items like modules.
- You are not able to use different DB versions from those provided by AWS.
- AWS keeps DB logs for a short time. If you have a problem and need to check something beyond the retention period, you can't.
December 31, 2019
Mobile Gaming Developers Sing ARDS Praises
I have used the Amazon Relational Database Service on behalf of a customer that was creating a mobile game that had elements of e-commerce. We needed something that was scalable, easy to implement, only charged us for the resources that we used, and had excellent customer service as this was a new project for our agency. ARDS checked every box.
- Database server monitoring.
- Security.
- Admin tools were confusing.
- Trial and error based learning.
September 12, 2019
Great value for any sized team
Amazon Web Services Relational Database Service (RDS) is being used as our production data store running MySQL. We use it to store user information, click information, billing information. Additionally, we have a separate instance running PostgreSQL and storing some of our proprietary objects used to emit streams for our core business model.
- Managed - RDS is entirely managed for us
- Scalable - It is incredibly easy to scale an RDS instance
- Support - AWS support is top-notch
- Since RDS is managed, you are never truly a superuser, you just have admin privileges.
- Lack of direct access to MySQL files and whatnot.
- Downtime is scheduled on their schedule rather than yours.
September 07, 2019
AWS RDS review for Engineers
We use AWS RDS service for multiple applications as a backend for MySQL Databases. It helped us in updating MySQL versions, backups, and snapshots. We don't have to spend time managing and maintaining infrastructure, and we spent the most time on business. We can choose or readjust capacity based on demands and also automatic backups stored on S3 bucket.
- Automatic updates.
- We can scale the resources.
- 99% availability.
- It needs some basic aws console experience to set up RDS.
September 03, 2019
Amazon Relational Database Service Review
Amazon Relational Database Service is used to host databases accessed by web applications that are on servers hosted within AWS EC2. There is also a database hosted in RDS used by end-user desktop applications.
- As with all AWS services, it is fast and easy to get set up.
- It integrates well with the rest of your infrastructure hosted within AWS.
- The point in time backup/restore options work well.
- There are use cases where you have to delete and recreate your entire database instance just to change one thing.
- SQL Server backup and restore to file is not a simple GUI-driven process.
- Read replicas are not offered for Microsoft SQL databases.
August 30, 2019
My experience with Amazon RDS
We use Amazon RDS across our organization to provide website data and data for applications used internally. It allows us to have fully managed MySQL and PostgreSQL instances at our disposal without the headache of maintaining backups and doing minor upgrades manually or setting up redundancy.
- Amazon RDS handles database backups for you and allows you to rollback if needed. This is beneficial because we do not have to take the time to set up and manage our own backup schedule.
- Amazon RDS allows full access control via Security Groups. This is vital to ensure the security of our data.
- With Amazon RDS, we have monitoring capabilities that allow us to trigger actions. This is important because we are not always watching our RDS instance health 24/7.
- Amazon RDS could possibly make the major upgrade process easier somehow.
- Amazon RDS has been an exceptional product in my eyes, so I find it very hard to think of areas it needs to improve.
Our organization runs lean, and as a small business that means that each employee wears multiple hats. With Amazon Relational Database Service we are able to deploy, backup, migrate, and manage a vast array of database servers without the need for a full-time Database Administrator. Amazon makes things like failover and backups so easy, my 89-year-old grandmother could do it.
- Deploying a new database server can be achieved and configured in minutes.
- Backups are automatically scheduled, and can be as easy as a few button clicks.
- Failover on Multi-AZ Instances works like magic.
- Security is easily configured to other Amazon Services and the outside world.
- It would be nice if the Storage of an instance could auto-scale.
- Accessing the server logs is something I've struggled with, as I don't have physical access to the server.
- It would be nice if snapshots could be exported from RDS.
February 27, 2019
RDS: a growing solution for your everyday database needs
Amazon RDS is a great service for managing all of your relational database services in a simple manner. In our shift to data analytics and a cloud infrastructure for our applications, RDS was invaluable in providing consistent backend support for all of our applications, both small and large. Its ability to quickly hook up to any existing AWS infrastructure and replicate itself across multiple AZs meant that we could quickly adjust the availability and cost efficiency of an application's database as it scaled.
- Scalable to infinity. If you want scalable infrastructure, RDS will provide it for you in droves. You automatically launch across multiple AZs to ensure failover solutions, and can choose to launch additional read replicas or database snapshots to ensure snappy reads and data availability.
- Allows you to focus on the application instead of managing a database. While this leads to tradeoffs in your control of the database, it allows a reduced DB management team and can ensure an application can get off the ground as soon as possible.
- You do have a lack of control when it comes to the minutiae of database management. Replication topology, SUPER privilege, direct access to data directories and logs are all restricted with RDS making it harder for the experienced RDS sysadmin to run their system.
- Availability reduced in some ways to make other options easier. The only feasible method is multi-AZ deployment for replication and planned downtime makes it hard to keep a running application at times
- Lack of access to the professional tools of RDS systems means that you have reduced insight into how your system is performing.
March 07, 2019
RDS, a light weight RDBMS for microservices
Currently, Amazon RDS is used as a data store for all the micro-services in my organization. It is particularly suitable because, in a very loosely coupled micro-services landscape, none of the services need a complex table structure and limited data redundancy is tolerated. Hence, a medium instance of RDS is more than capable of servicing our production-grade micro-services without the maintenance cost of an on-premise RDBMS.
- It is scalable and fault tolerant.
- It is provided as a managed service without the need for an on premise data center.
- It is highly capable and a fast enough data source for a production-grade lightweight microservice.
- It is not suitable for a very complex database where every performance aspect of a database needs to be granularly fine-tuned.
- Adopters have to take care of data security.
- It is not suitable for analytics.
July 19, 2019
Amazon RDS -- Good cloud-based database service
We have been using AWS RDS with MySQL for internal as well as production level since 2014. Amazon RDS is the best option to host relational databases. We are using AWS RDS to support our web service and website solution for the client, which exceeds 1+ million hits over a month.
- High availability and scalability with HIPPA compliance for sensitive data.
- Great interactive console and configuration option.
- Great availability of cloud watch triggers.
- Very fast and easy to create a backup and restore.
- It's a little bit complex for new users to understand all configurations.
- Security group creation and maintenance is time-consuming.
- Costly for small organizations.
Amazon Relational Database Service is used by our Development team to centrally host data that our customers create using our application. Our customers are all within North America. Our application can use either MySQL or Amazon's Aurora, interchangeably. Amazon's RDS tools allowed us to quickly move from a distributed application with local databases on each customer's PC, to a SaaS model with multi-tenancy.
- Console is very intuitive, allowing new users to figure out what is possible without having to search documentation to do each and everything.
- Seamless upgrade process from MySQL to Aurora.
- Easy restore process from automated or manual backups.
- Leverages aspects/services also used by EC2 and other AWS services to implement security and balancing.
- Unclear on pricing while choosing instance resource levels, must browse to a separate calculator instead of just displaying it on the page in real time with the selected options.
- Must pick from pre-configured resources(CPU & RAM) per instance class, while GCP allows you to adjust resources to whatever level desired.
- Has some restrictions on what configuration adjustments can be made to the server when compared to other hosting options.
February 27, 2019
RDS - More bang for your buck
Amazon RDS is our core database platform. It is used for both development and production loads, throughout the company. RDS provides us with a full-featured database without the cost of managing the server or installation.
- Hands-off managed service allows us to focus on how we use the database and not managing the database.
- Multiple database choices provide us with the ability to choose the best product for the intended use case.
- Automated snapshots take the pain out of disaster recovery.
- RDS databases are not encrypted by default, so you have to remember to add encryption when you set it up.
April 23, 2019
Shaik Review on Amazon Relational Database
We started recently using Amazon Relational Database service in our company. We are exploring the usage and trying to utilize it at the maximum level. Still we are in the learning phase. Presently we are using Amazon Relational Database service in building reports, Analyzing the data in different ways. As I said earlier still we are in the learning phase as of now we are in good shape.
- Data storage and retrieval of data at high speed.
- Able to store a huge amount of data.
- Analyzing of data became more accurate.
- Price is a little high
- Multi-Master replication
- Storage capacity needs to increase
February 04, 2019
Amazon RDS - Quick and Easy Way to Get Set up With Enterprise Database Architecture and Management
My organization uses Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) to manage all of its Databases. The nice thing about RDS is you don't need to have a traditional Database Administrator on staff. Creating an instance of any of the many Database offerings (MySQL, Postgres, etc.) is as easy as a push of a button, and all the complexities around managing your data become very simple.
- End-to-end management of your database -- including configuration, handling security, and maintenance.
- Offers compatibility with many (and the most popular) database technologies -- including but not limited to MySQL, Postgres, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle DB.
- Makes backups and replications very easy, which is one of the toughest things to do effectively.
- The logging options aren't as good as you would have if you managed your database yourself.
- Restricted rights and permissions. Because you are using a managed service, you don't have 100% of all the capabilities you would traditionally have when managing a database yourself.
- Because you are using a managed service, that's meant to do a lot for you and make things easy, you are paying a premium price. Some tasks are very simple (for even standard software developers, not even for a DBA). If you don't need to scale and aren't in a rush, the price might not be worth it.
January 14, 2019
A great, scalable, transactional engine
My organization has, since the beginning, utilized RDS as our transactional, day-to-day database, at first staging all incoming data in a PostgreSQL. Although it has performed so well that it now handles all of our data warehousing and has handled our heaviest queries with enviable aplomb. We had initially staged data in RDS for migration into Redshift, but have determined that running well-optimized queries on our particular volume of data--certainly not the petabytes that would justify Redshift--our PostrgreSQL database on RDS is actually more performant.
- Security... being in the AWS stack, you get all the "warm and fuzzies" that come with knowing your data is secure. And user management couldn't be easier.
- Flexibility... Aurora, PostreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server--RDS can run any of them.
- Scalability... when all else fails, add more hardware! To a point... and there is a point (see: petabytes) at which you might consider bumping up to RedShift, but for the other 99.99%, RDS is the place to be.
- My engineers would be able to speak more thoroughly to the cons. I have only benefited from the fruit of their labor. I can say that, from a Project Management standpoint (interfacing with RDS via a PostgreSQL client and my dashboards), it has only performed well so far.
September 06, 2018
I can't think of a reason not to use Amazon RDS (especially Aurora)
We use RDS to run all the databases to run our platform for both OLTP and analytics/reporting purposes. This includes traditional PostgresSQL Aurora PostgeSQL. and Aurora MySQL implementations.
- RDS provides high availability databases without having to manage your own servers.
- Amazon Aurora in particular is a breakthrough database technology, and in particular with the PostgreSQL engine provides advanced features at a fraction of the cost of an Oracle implementation, with better features that have been designed from the ground up to support the cloud.
- Aurora also allows supports large clusters of database servers easily, with super fast replication (~20 ms), and flexibility to allow changing resources provisioned based on workload.
- Cross-Region replication is supported for most platforms and engines, but is not available across the board yet. Where it is available it provides an excellent solution for disaster recovery.
August 31, 2018
A developer's take on AWS RDS
Amazon RDS is one of the primary data stores for all applications in our organisation. We also use AWS DynamoDB, Elastic Search, Redis etc apart from RDS. We preferred RDS over other DBaaS because it's a part of AWS which is highly reliable and scalable, and it is a completely managed solution which is simple, easy to use and also offers advanced features required by DevOps team.
- Zero manual configuration, you can get an instance up and running in just 5 minutes.
- High scalability (RDS simplifies setting up master-slave cluster) and reliability (Multi AZ replications).
- Automatic backups so that we don't have to worry about losing data.
- Hard to debug performance issues at times since it is a managed service and we don't have all privileges.
We are using Amazon Relational Database Service to provide various managed database clusters, enabling us to have our data replicated to multiple availability zones, in addition to nightly backups, and managed updates without downtime. Since Amazon Relational Database Service supports MySQL and MariaDB, we are able to use RDS without changes to our platform, removing vendor lock-in.
- Redundency
- Managed Updates
- Security
- Unified billing
- Unable to run custom software on RDS servers
- Customer support is lackluster
- Price
Our company has a cloud-first and AWS first strategy that includes creating and moving databases to the public cloud. We started this journey seriously about 2 years ago and have decided to use RDS services as often as possible, instead of using EC2 instances for our database environments. While our footprint in the public cloud is still a small part of our overall compute, we are finding that RDS is meeting our database needs are we are migrating and creating new ones. RDS is not only solving issues for the operations of our business, we are also using RDS as part of our overall data lake strategy.
- Getting the data in and out of our databases, especially with the close integration RDS has with S3 buckets.
- Less overall management of the database servers. Our DBAs are now do more DBA work than server admin work, which moves them higher on the value chain.
- Performance and Scalability.
- Some of the RDS (like Redshift) still lack a SQL programming language like t-SQL, but are getting better all the time.
- Depending on the database chosen, pricing is still dictated by the vendor like Oracle or SQL-server.
- For problem deep in the system, not having machine access can be problematic.
Amazon RDS Scorecard Summary
Feature Scorecard Summary
About Amazon RDS
Amazon RDS is available on several database instance types - optimized for memory, performance or I/O - and provides you with six familiar database engines to choose from including Amazon Aurora, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle Database, and SQL Server.
Categories: Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS)
Amazon RDS Screenshots
Amazon RDS Videos (2)
Amazon RDS Supported Products
Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, AWS Lambda, MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon Aurora, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Amazon RDS Competitors
Oracle Database, Google Cloud SQL, Microsft SQL Server
Pricing
Amazon RDS Support Options
| Free Version | Paid Version | |
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Amazon RDS Availability
| Geography: | NAMER, APAC, LATAM, EMEA |
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| Supported Languages: | English, French, Korean, Chinese, Japanese |