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Amazon RDS

Amazon RDS

Overview

What is Amazon RDS?

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) from Amazon Web Services.

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Recent Reviews

Amazon RDS review

9 out of 10
October 09, 2023
Incentivized
RDS simplifies database management tasks like provisioning, patching, backup, recovery etc. This reduces the administrative burden and …
Continue reading

Amazon RDS review

9 out of 10
October 07, 2023
Incentivized
In my organization we use Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for storing relational data which is used by our Internal teams for …
Continue reading
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Awards

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Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL

$0.24 ($0.48)

Cloud
per hour, R5 Large (R5 Extra Large)

Amazon RDS for MariaDB

$0.25 ($0.50)

Cloud
per hour, R5 Large (R5 Extra Large)

Amazon RDS for MySQL

$0.29 ($0.58)

Cloud
per hour, R5 Large (R5 Extra Large)

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
    Optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://aws.amazon.com/rds/pricing/?trk…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details

What is Amazon RDS?

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) allows users to set up, operate, and scale a database in the cloud. The vendor states it provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while automating time-consuming administration tasks such as hardware provisioning, setup, patching, and backups. This frees users to focus on applications so they can give them the fast performance, high availability, security, and compatibility they need.

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.

Amazon RDS Screenshots

Screenshot of A look inside the RDS console.

Amazon RDS Videos

What's new in Amazon RDS
Dive deep into RDS new features.

Amazon RDS Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesNAMER, APAC, LATAM, EMEA
Supported LanguagesEnglish, French, Korean, Chinese, Japanese

Frequently Asked Questions

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) from Amazon Web Services.

Oracle Database, Google Cloud SQL, and Microsoft SQL Server are common alternatives for Amazon RDS.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.6.

The most common users of Amazon RDS are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(290)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 128)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Alok Pabalkar | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Amazon Aurora as one of the databases used for hosting a product in our Edtech SaaS Platform GIDE.AI.
  • Setting-up, Monitoring & Managing DB is super easy.
  • It has automatic backup and in Multi A-Z mode DB can be used in Mirrored mode.
  • Has Point in time recovery, which was super useful, when a team member accidentally updated some entries and we were able to restore it super quickly.
  • On the fly DB Vertical Scaling could be useful.
  • Connection Display & stats can be present to see and improve app design
  • Could have inbuilt service for troubleshooting, locks, slow queries.
1. All Transactional Processes 2. Storage of Structured Data Not suited for applications that have highly changing requirements. Better to use a NoSQL DB as it provides the ability to store unstructured data.
Aman Makwana | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a Relational Database Service we have used AWS RDS because as a Banking and Fintech organisation we are dealing with millions of customer and as AWS provides this Managed service which is fully fledged with lots of feature like High Availability, Fault Tolerance, Security measures, In Depth Monitoring, Resilency, Query Suggestions and Very High Performance. Moreover this all set of features are available as one click solutions so we don't have a external headache to manage the Database we just have to focus on our Application.
  • Multi AZ, EC2 secure instance connect, Read and Write replicas
  • Storage and Database autoscaling is achieved by just one click so that our DB performance is not impacted due to huge number of users
  • In depth monitoring of Database and Database Queries and also the suggestions to improvise the same.
  • Automated and Manual Backup process that reduces our time to setup the Database Backup process
  • Faster DB provisioning speed
  • No room for improvement as of now
You can use AWS RDS when you are specifically on cloud and also you don't want a headache to Setup the Database Availability, Security, Resilency, Monitoring by using RDS you can get all this feature on just one click ( Note: As per the feature you enable it can have add on charges based on that).

If you are a Startup owner and you want to get started with AWS RDS it also provides the Free tier quota where you can get started on RDS and also by applying to AWS startup events you can get Additional Cloud credits.
January 16, 2024

AWS RDS a good use case

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We started using RDS as an alternative to our BE system since, at the beginning, the team did not have experience or knowledge about BE frameworks, but it was necessary to maintain a relationship between the data of the projects being executed and the RDS services of Amazon were of great help, since it is an out of the box solution. As well as it also served as a starting point to understand how our BE system should be structured later.
  • Easy to implement
  • Lots of documentation and tutorials available, from Amazon and third parties
  • Low cost
  • The official documentation needs to be sharped.
  • Tools to move data from one server to another
For people or companies that are starting out and do not have the necessary concepts to implement a database into their Backend system, or that they don't have their on cluster or a backend engineer that can configure it, RDS can fulfill a percentage of this functionality. Also if later is needed the data can be migrated to a database that lives inside the company cluster.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our company needed a reliable and fast solution for storing our customer data and Amazon Relational Database Service was a good choice because of all the set of features it offers. On top of the relational storage, our company could comply with market standards by easily having replication, backup, patching and user management easily implemented natively in the solution. What is also great about Amazon Relational Database Service is that you can manage everything using terraform, making it easy to reproduce the configurations in multiple environments.
  • Relational data storage
  • Backups
  • Availability
  • Schema management
  • Monitoring
  • DBM
Amazon Relational Database Service is good for real-time transactions with quick immediate response in which the data is stored locally, so might not be the best choice for huge data warehouse or data lake. It also depends a lot on the data type you want to use for your applications, some data types might be better handled by other solutions. For quick out of the box solutions with no complex architecture Amazon Relational Database Service is a great choice.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is used in our company at quite a large scale. We have migrated all of our server infrastructure to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, so making use of the Relational Database Service was a no-brainer for us.
Most of our systems are connected to an RDS instance.
  • Scalability
  • Availability
  • Performance
  • Competitive Pricing
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.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In healthcare, managing patient records and sensitive data securely is crucial. RDS offers encrypted storage, ensuring data security and compliance with regulations like HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). This encryption extends to data in transit and at rest. With RDS, you can set up multi-AZ (Availability Zone) deployments for high availability. This is vital in healthcare, where database downtime can directly impact patient care. In case of disasters, RDS facilitates quick recovery, minimizing data loss.
  • Automated Backups and Snapshots
  • Easy Scalability
  • Read Replicas for Improved Performance
  • Limited Control Over Underlying Infrastructure
  • Cost Management
  • Complexity in Monitoring and Logging
Electronic Health Records (EHR) Management: RDS is ideal for managing EHR systems due to its high availability, security features, and scalability. It ensures that patient records are always accessible, secure, and can handle increasing loads as more data is added. For telemedicine platforms that require reliable, scalable databases to manage patient appointments, medical histories, and consultation notes, RDS can provide the necessary backend support. Scenarios Where Amazon RDS Might Be Less Appropriate:Highly Customized Database Configurations If your healthcare application requires very specific, fine-tuned database configurations or uses specialized database features not fully supported by RDS a self-managed database might be a better fit. If your healthcare application requires real-time processing of data (e.g., real-time monitoring of patient vitals), you might need a more specialized solution like Amazon Kinesis or a similar real-time data processing service.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use RDS to manage all of our SQL databases for multiple billing and payment applications. This includes Aurora and PostgreSQL databases with millions of records and several terabytes of data. These databases are accessed in real time by web applications that handle the requests from thousands of users. RDS handles backups, security, and compliance by default.
  • Security
  • Backups and availability.
  • Scalability and managing large amounts of data.
  • Prices are not cheap.
  • Logs could be better.
RDS is a smart way to deploy and maintain databases in production with world-class capabilities such as backups, scalability, security, and compliance. If you are starting a company or launching a new application, why manage your own database servers? RDS helps you get started with a production-quality database right from the start.
Prajwal Shetty | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I used Amazon Relational Database Service for Databricks Technical Field Telemetry(TFT) Project, which is an internal project for field engineering teams where they manage customer engagement, interactions, feedbacks. This majorly helped to improve our product by managing each team, each individual performances, thus they can set targets for improvement plans. It also displays a hit score which is the benchmark for internal teams. We used Amazon Relational Database Service serverless to deploy the backend database, which is lightening fast, reliable DBMS.
  • Serverless
  • Performance
  • Scalability
  • Reliability
  • AWS instance downtimes
  • Ease of use
  • End user installation
It's best suited for serverless computing, really fast, least downtime. But when the Ec2 instance is down it's directly proportional, also we could see a connection issue when Ec2 instance wasn't open.
October 09, 2023

Amazon RDS review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
RDS simplifies database management tasks like provisioning, patching, backup, recovery etc. This reduces the administrative burden and allows teams to focus on application development rather than database maintenance. Since this is a managed service it provides in built high availability and scalability. Also we can secure our data by encrypting them at both transit and rest. One more useful use case is, we can selectively encrypt sensitive data to give extra protection
  • Read replicas and global availability of database which enhances user experience
  • Integrate well with other aws services lile IAM, KMS etc
  • Performance insight help us to get an aggregate view of db activities which is necessary for troubleshooting
  • Introduce more supportive engine
  • Can introduce more granular control over back ups to save cost
E commerse platforms can take advantage of RDS very well as they have to maintain lot if structured data. I would say if the data is non relational and also if company requires real time analysis and all it is better to use other solutions
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Storing relational auditing data for our digital ecosystem which includes desktop website, mobile website and mobile apps to get meaningful insights so as to take next steps.
  • Upgrade
  • Scaling
  • Up to date with Oracle
  • Upgrade
  • Replication across regions
  • Scalability
For storing relational data in a single region across multiple AZ. we can use RDS for any relational data as a matter of fact and it behaves quite well in regards to keeping itself upgrade, salability and in fact availability.
October 07, 2023

Amazon RDS review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In my organization we use Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for storing relational data which is used by our Internal teams for their workloads. In our current use case Amazon RDS addressed the problems of managing the Database, offer scalability and High availability on demand reducing the operational burden on the team.
  • Scalability - Provide on demand scaling with optimal performance
  • High availability and Disaster recovery - As a Financial organization we want to maximise our SLO and Amazon RDS helps us by providing HA and DR.
  • Global reach - As a globally distributed company we want our databases to replicate across regions and Amazon RDS manage that efficiently
  • Customization - You can't have a single instance, it will automatically comes with multiple AZ
  • Better Integration with other AWS services
Best suited - Web applications(when the application need a Scalable relational database with High availability and regional replication), Reporting - You can run SQL queries to create reports out of the data.


Less suited - For large scale unstructured data(Other NoSQL database will be more useful in terms of cost and performance), When you need very low latency in real time.
Ejaz Hussain | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We utilize Amazon Relational Database Service to host MySQL RDBS to store the data related to custom apps for our dev environment. It's super easy & fast to set up the database instances in a few clicks from the AWS management console. A lot of times, the developers in our team aren't that expert when it comes to managing the database administration, & hence for this very reason, Amazon Relational Database Service is our preferred DB service as it simplifies time-consuming admin tasks.
  • Monitoring of metrics performance via AWS CloudWatch.
  • Read replicas to maintain data integrity & High availability.
  • Minimal need of maintaining the Database.
  • Serverless DB.
  • Somewhat costly.
  • Migrating from RDS to other DB service is complex.
  • Horizontal scaling can be improved.
It will suit & fit in almost all the user cases where there is a need for RDBMS. Given its seamless & minimal effort to set it up & run along with a wide variety of DB engines to choose from, it is a robust DB Service.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) and is used for application level data access for custom applications
  • Hardware
  • Backups
  • Storage Allocation
  • Access limitation
  • Backup options
  • Cost
  • Broader application support
  • Performance improvements
I think compared to RAC environments for Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) works well in limited Hardware . good for small size dbs and applications . Storage usage and process of adding storage . In my opinion, not good for bigger applications. I think patching Needs improvements and is not best suitable in case of high available applications.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
RDS performs frequent backups of your database, and you may configure retention rules to control how long backups are kept. RDS makes it simple to extend our database instance vertically by switching instance types or horizontally by adding read replicas. AWS takes care of the underlying infrastructure, including hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups of our business.
  • Regular backups of database.
  • Database is available even if there is hardware and network issues.
  • We can control access to your RDS instances through security groups and network access control lists
  • RDS price may be complicated, with various aspects such as instance type, storage, I/O operations, and data transmission influencing costs
  • RDS may lag in supporting the most recent versions of database engines.
RDS is a great option for hosting the database backbone of online applications such as content management systems, e-commerce sites, and social media platforms. Amazon Aurora, a highly performant and scalable database engine, is supported by Amazon RDS. RDS is primarily intended for use with relational databases. Consider Amazon DynamoDB or other NoSQL database services if your application requires a NoSQL database with flexible schemas.
Vishwa Ratna | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We at Publicis Sapient has been delivering software solutions to many of our clients regularly. There is often the need to persistent data storage and we recommend to use Amazon RDS because it is easy to set up, the dev team don't have to dig deep in understanding about how to connect the Amazon RDS to the backend or how to invoke a request. The Amazon RDS has low learning curve which means the new dev team can work on it from day 1 without good deeper in terms of learning.
  • We used to store persistent data of clients
  • Sales and user data is stored and the manipulation is done at the backend side using CRUD operations.
  • The improvement in terms of blockchain native could be introduced
  • The Amazon RDS should have it's standalone client so that we don't need to download the specific software in our system when we want to use it from our desktop.
Amazon Relational Database Service is well suited when you want a rapid development as the learning curve is minimal for this and the new development team can start building from day 1.

The capabilities in terms of storing blockchain native data could be introduced, currently we can use it for fast paced data but the retrieval and flexibility of storage is not as good as other blockchain leger storages.
Somnath Nayek | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is a nosql relational database offered by Amazon itself.it will help organizations to manage and maintain large chunk of data. user can use its PAAS services and they have to manage only database part and rest backend infrastructure managed by Amazon itself. we can use Amazon storage S3 service to store data Aswell.
  • PAAS easily anyone can spin one
  • scalable as per your request
  • robust and easy to manage
  • 99 % uptime
  • more features which help connect user
  • different API integration
  • seamless connection with onprem and other DB agent
In our project we use Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) along with other dB like sql and mssql.its easily connected with other onprem dB and create dataflow seamlessly.also we use Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) to run our external data serve purpose.its easy scalable features help to scale as per business requirements. easly can connect with different endpoint.
Adrián Rivelli | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use RDS as part of the infrastructure as a service that supports our application. In the beginning, we struggled a bit with fine-tuning and monitoring but once we incorporated the tools everything worked very well. I consider that the scalability and backup tools are adequate for our requirements.
While availability and provisioning speed are similar to other IaaS, they are still important.
  • high availability, we have had no downtime in the 3 years we have been using it.
  • versatility... several database engines available
  • management... RDS take care of everything related with the DB but the application
  • the cost modeling is a bit complex for my taste... I had a hard time predicting it.
I think it is ideal for startups and applications with moderate resource consumption... for larger applications the costs may be too high.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I utilize Amazon RDS as the backbone for content management and stored user information for our corporate web presence. I was looking for a scalable relational database that would be an easy transition with my background in MySQL. I didn't want to spend a lot of time setting up and managing replication and backup, and I didn't want daily maintenance tasks. RDS fit the bill nicely, and coupled with my EC2-based web hosting, provides a easy-to-implement security.
  • Simplicity
  • Security
  • Monitoring
  • Properly implementing security can be challenging for new users
  • Administrative tools are not always intuitive
Well suited for system administrators looking to incorporate a highly available RDBMS into their AWS-hosted web site. Not well suited for WYSIWYG web site developers.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
RDS is pivotal to our data strategy, powering hundreds of databases within our infrastructure. Its reliability and scalability ensure optimal performance and data integrity. Rigorous security measures, including backups and monitoring, maintain database stability. RDS flexibility accommodates evolving business needs while optimizing performance and cost-efficiency.
  • Automated Backups
  • High Availability
  • Database Snapshots
  • Security and Compliance
  • Scalability
  • Limited Control
  • Cost Transparency
  • Lack of Support for Certain Database Engines
  • Improved Data Migration Tools
  • Switch to Encrypted RDS from Unencrypted RDS
Amazon RDS is an ideal choice when you need rapid database deployment for your project due to its user-friendly configuration and robust automation support, including Terraform and CloudFormation. Being a managed service, AWS assumes responsibility for its management, ensuring reliability. However, it may not be the best fit if you require extensive control over your databases.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using RDS in storing all our products and their information.
We have hundreds of brass products and we have maintained all our product database with RDS.
It is quick and easy also we have assigned to roles to avoid access to unauthorized users.
We have different databases of products depending upon our audience and purpose.
  • RDS is fast
  • All versions of databases engines are already installed
  • Highly secure
  • Takes less time to setup
  • Logs needs to be more visually appealing and detailed in a proper way
  • Cost is high
  • Scaling is an issue, it is tiring and exhausting
I am storing structured data such as product description, SKU, price, dimensions, customers reviews etc due to which i need to have structured data therefore relational database is very appropriate for my use case.
It becomes very fast.
Moreover my setup is in Amazon EC2 thus Amazon RDS has integration for that aswell thus making it a perfect combo.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
At our organization, we use it for our revenue management and some publisher application database services. It is also a component of our performance goals and SLA improvements, and is tied to our CI/CD processes and is a foundation for expansion because of its ease of use, low learning curve to implement, and backup services it can link to.
  • Database backups and restoration processing
  • Security group management for access management
  • Blue green deployment features
  • Did not seem to allow for segmented RDS backup instances, you had to backup the full instance
  • Console commands and controls could be improved
I honestly can't think of any use cases where it is not appropriate. The RDS service is well suited when tied to almost any 3rd party database engines. I say almost any because I have not used them all and tested! It is a very low cost to run solution, and even in scenarios where backups are considered. This is an important fact when coming to thinking about a full architecture plan. Great for situations in need of Scale, Failover, and Backup and Recovery.
September 27, 2023

Universal, Easy to Use RDS

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) as our primary RDMS for querying and viewing all of our data in one place. Use cases include analyzing player data, performance, and user acquisition
  • User friendly
  • Great team support and onboarding
  • Integrates seamlessly
  • additional features to continue enhancing user experience.
I think this is a great tool for anyone needing to house multiple sources of data. It integrates well and is a commonly known RDMS, allowing for less complications with external partner collaboration.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it as our main Mysql database repository. It is used to run our hub system which is accessed by retailers and applicants
  • Great Backup process
  • Great performance reports
  • No root access to mange the instance
  • Patching requires down time
If a user needs to spin up a mysql server quickly this is a good option, however if you need to customize the instance it might be better to spin up an EC2 instance and run your own Mysql db.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use RDS as a database service provider for multiple eCommerce and small business websites to deliver configuration and content data to several mainstream service softwares. We use this as a rate-based, scalable alternative to cPaneled phpMyAdmin setups. More control means throughput and service level can be increased instead of being subject to server limitations.
  • Quick deployment via templates or industry standard models.
  • Easy replication and failover.
  • Nuanced cost measurement
  • Availability Zones
  • Costs can scale unpredictably without notice.
  • As with all AWS tools, overly complex interface.
RDS only works if you have access to someone who really knows the product. Don't dabble with RDS - do the full cost-benefit and go all in, if it's what you conclude that you need, including an employee or contractor who has demonstrated rich experience in the product who will actively configure the full product, and deploy monitoring tools to call attention to log alerts, downtime, demand changes and/or cost increases.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
RDS helps us with the management of our database - setup, version upgrades, backups, optimization, configuration management and so on. It saves us a lot of time.
  • Easy spin-up of new database
  • Easy database version upgrade
  • Easy backups
  • Database user management
  • Database restoration from backup
  • Encryption-at-rest of existing database
  • Reserved Instances, as compared to EC2
For a quick, dependable and fairly easy launch of a database instance, with a low-touch (or even almost no-touch) experience - it is just great.
For more advanced situations, it might be a limiting factor, e.g. smart backup and restore, user management, toggling on encryption-at-rest etc.
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