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Amazon RDS pros and cons

Vendor: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

4.2 out of 5

52 reviews
98% willing to recommend

437 followers

Pros & Cons summary

Amazon RDS is easy to set up, providing high availability and scalability with features like Read Replicas, automated backups, and integration with AWS services. It enhances disaster recovery but requires better default features and support for more databases such as NoSQL. Initial setup complexities, running costs, and technical support need improvement. Enhanced integration with Microsoft products could facilitate on-premises migration and address pricing strategy demands.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Amazon RDS is easy to set up and manage, significantly reducing the time and effort required for database administration.

It enhances scalability and performance through features like read replicas and automatic scaling.

Amazon RDS provides high availability and robust disaster recovery capabilities, ensuring data integrity and continuous operation.

It supports automatic backups, snapshots, and patch management, which greatly simplifies database maintenance tasks.

Amazon RDS facilitates secure data handling with features like encryption and compliance adherence, making it suitable for sensitive environments.

CONS

A lot of features are disabled by default, and more should be enabled to make migration from on-premises solutions easier.

RDS could improve support for additional databases, such as Db2, NoSQL databases, and others like DynamoDB and Apache Cassandra.

Technical support requires paying for an additional subscription, and documentation management could be improved.

The installation and first-time configuration are complex and should be made simpler.

RDS is expensive, and a more predictable pricing strategy would be helpful.

Amazon RDS Pros review quotes

reviewer2382648

General Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Jul 4, 2024

The product's initial setup phase is totally easy.

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GK

Gurudeva Kalledevarpurada B

IT Solution Architect at HCS

Apr 3, 2020

It makes it easy to administer the database. It helps to scale your database by providing Read Replicas, which reduce transaction time. It is highly available and durable which helps in disaster recovery and management.

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Lead Data Engineer at Seven Lakes Enterprises, Inc.

Aug 1, 2022

I recommend RDS because it makes your life super easy.

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SR

Sivashankar Rajaram

Principal engineer at Verizon

Jun 2, 2020

The most valuable feature is that it is a fully managed database, where they handle most of the administrative tasks and leaves the users more time to concentrate on business.

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MA

Owner at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Oct 1, 2021

Being able to change the size of an RDS MySQL instance is amazing.

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reviewer1472997

CTO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Jan 24, 2021

The product is very, very easy to use.

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reviewer2252781

Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Sep 19, 2023

The most valuable features of Amazon RDS are its scalability, reliability, and intelligence.

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Shaamil Ashraff

Architect - Database Administration at Mitra Innovation

Jun 3, 2022

The time to install or set up a database environment is very fast.

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Database Administrator at Cartrack

May 19, 2022

Amazon RDS gives us the ability to select as many tools, replicas, regions, and zones as we want.

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Udhay Prakash Pethakamsetty

Data Engineer Manager at Capgemini

Feb 23, 2024

The product solved our DevOps and admin problems.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 49)

Amazon RDS Cons review quotes

reviewer2382648

General Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Jul 4, 2024

As a customer of Amazon RDS, you don't have super-user privileges, and that is the only drawback where improvements are required.

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GK

Gurudeva Kalledevarpurada B

IT Solution Architect at HCS

Apr 3, 2020

The Amazon RDS engine could provide features for additional databases, such as Db2. It could also provide support for other databases, such as NoSQL databases, DynamoDB, and Apache Cassandra. They could all stay under one hood.

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Lead Data Engineer at Seven Lakes Enterprises, Inc.

Aug 1, 2022

One of the challenges of AWS RDS is that it doesn't support performance insight. So we need to write our own script or use third-party tools.

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Free Report: Amazon RDS Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Amazon RDS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.

816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

SR

Sivashankar Rajaram

Principal engineer at Verizon

Jun 2, 2020

It would be helpful if they made it easier to migrate from an existing on-premises solution to the cloud-based service.

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MA

Owner at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Oct 1, 2021

The Performance Monitor they have is a little clanky, at least in regards to the UI.

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reviewer1472997

CTO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Jan 24, 2021

You can only get access from the sales support. That means if you want to buy something or renew your subscription or upgrade, all these services are easily available. Yet, if you would like to get some technical support, you have to pay for it. You have to pay for an additional subscription.

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reviewer2252781

Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Sep 19, 2023

The only thing that needs improvement would be the pricing of the solution.

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Shaamil Ashraff

Architect - Database Administration at Mitra Innovation

Jun 3, 2022

The solution is a bit expensive.

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Database Administrator at Cartrack

May 19, 2022

Some of the features will not be there. For example, some on-premises things we want to set up will not be supported there. There are some challenges that they are fixing.

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Udhay Prakash Pethakamsetty

Data Engineer Manager at Capgemini

Feb 23, 2024

The product should support new databases.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 49)

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Database as a Service (DBaaS)

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Amazon RDS

Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon RDS

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

SingleStore vs Amazon RDS

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Google Cloud Spanner vs Amazon RDS

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See all alternatives

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