Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 25.9% mindshare in DS, compared to Microsoft’s 17.3% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Amazon RDS

Read 53 Amazon RDS reviews

6,510 Views
5,468 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 115 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

8,417 Views
3,609 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Amazon RDS

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

Amazon RDS and Microsoft Azure SQL Database are strong players in the cloud database market. Based on the comparisons, each product has distinct advantages that cater to different needs.

Features: Amazon RDS offers automated backups, ease of scalability, and high availability. Microsoft Azure SQL Database has advanced machine learning capabilities, integration with other Azure services, and built-in security features.

Room for Improvement: Amazon RDS could improve its support, reduce downtime during maintenance, and enhance its performance analytics. Microsoft Azure SQL Database needs better performance analytics, improved documentation for complex setups, and more intuitive user interfaces.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon RDS is easier to deploy and integrates well with AWS services, but its customer service receives mixed reviews. Microsoft Azure SQL Database has a straightforward deployment process and an effective support team, especially for enterprises already using Azure.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon RDS offers competitive pricing with good ROI for small and medium businesses, but costs can increase with higher usage. Microsoft Azure SQL Database is more expensive but the added features and integration justify the cost, providing good ROI for enterprises needing comprehensive solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Amazon RDS

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

115

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 25.9%, down from 28.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 17.3%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

Udhay Prakash Pethakamsetty

Data Engineer Manager at Capgemini

Provides excellent authentication, authorization, integration, data protection, and autoscaling features

The product should support new databases. RocketDB is written in C++. It is useful when we work with Kafka. The product should support more databases and not just the standard four to five databases. It will help the users to explore new avenues and not be confined to the standard ones. The tool provides automatic backup, but the recovery is slow if something goes wrong. We need to wait for some time. If a failure happens, recovery takes some time. Meanwhile, we lose business. It would be great if it happens much faster. The cross-region replication settings are very complex. We need to do careful planning.

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Adam Carlson

Senior Technical Lead (Sharepoint) at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Integrates with other Microsoft applications very well

Azure SQL had a bit of a learning curve to start, but it was fairly simple once I understood how to develop it. I was using PowerShell to connect to it, and I've never connected to online databases through Azure using PowerShell. Scripting the PowerShell connections could be simpler. The coding is familiar, but figuring out how to use it initially can be easier.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Amazon RDS makes it easier for me to manage databases compared to traditional databases like MongoDB or local host servers."

"Amazon RDS handles database backup mechanisms and patch management."

"It is stable, scalable, and easy to deploy."

"For me, RDS is a great solution. I like that Amazon RDS is a very simple solution to implement and to start using."

"I found it to be a stable solution."

"The scalability is the best, and I have no issues with the ability to scale."

"It's a fully managed database, so that makes our life easier from the operational standpoint. That is the key, basically."

"Amazon RDS is easy to maintain and easy to deploy."

More Amazon RDS pros

"Shifting our corporate programs to the cloud is more or less the same due to the ease of implementation. We've cut costs by around 70 percent."

"SQL Server has helped to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership."

"Overall, Azure SQL has been great. The ease of deployment and scalability are significant reasons we push our larger clients to Azure. We could throw the kitchen sink at the thing if we wanted."

"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."

"The ability to maintain different environments, such as development and production databases, is valuable."

"Its technical support team is good."

"The product is easy to set up."

"I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database 10 out of 10."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

"If Amazon RDS can be provided as a service platform, it would be beneficial for years. Instead of focusing on infrastructure, they can assist backend engineers and those with varying technical expertise in utilizing it effectively. It would be helpful if Amazon could provide a more predictable pricing strategy."

"Amazon has a policy of automatically restarting the server every seven days."

"The solution's version upgrade and performance could be improved."

"I like using Amazon RDS because it offers quick operations for me. However, there are times when understanding how to use some of the services can be challenging, even with documentation. If I could add a feature, I'd improve navigation for related services."

"There are a few aspects of database management that have room for improvement. There are a few parameters in the solution that are a bit unclear at our end as it's not understandable."

"The support team of Amazon RDS provides us with some links to go through whenever we face some issues, but it doesn't work for us."

"Amazon cannot guarantee the stability of some extensions, and there is a need for different extensions to meet PCI requirements."

"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."

More Amazon RDS cons

"There is a need for dynamic scaling support without losing current transactions. That should be part of the standard offering to SKUs."

"We've had many concurrency issues with it, particularly with applications that do a lot of parallel processing. We noticed that sometimes the Azure SQL databases would spike and peak their CPU units, causing some performance issues for us. It would be helpful if CPU performance were not pinned to the amount of storage you're using, and we could scale different properties of the Azure SQL database independently."

"It's not a feature, but the solution only offers a certain amount of memory and that's limiting. The scalability should be extended to more than two terabytes."

"Its automation can be improved. SQL Server Agent was a very big part of the on-prem tools. While moving from on-prem to the cloud, redoing some of such tools was very cumbersome in Azure. There was a whole new set of technologies and methodologies. It should have easier automation-type features to be able to implement such tools. It should have almost a SQL agent type of substance built into that."

"The pricing is very high."

"There are certain shortcomings when it comes to the stability of the product, especially if I consider the fact that there can always be some bug-related issues in the tool."

"The solution lacks feedback tools."

"There is room for improvement regarding the pricing structure."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Amazon RDS is expensive."

"Amazon RDS is an expensive solution."

"Amazon RDS could improve by reducing the price."

"In my case, MySQL is free, and if there are any costs, then it is much less than other solutions since all such things usually come bundled with the hardware."

"The price could be better."

"The solution’s pricing could be cheaper."

"The pricing of RDS is a little bit high compared to Microsoft... However, it is a good price compared to other solutions."

"Amazon RDS is not a very expensive solution."

More Amazon RDS pricing and cost advice

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap."

"The cost is around $2,000 per month."

"I recommend considering a pay-as-you-go pricing model initially."

"The licensing for this solution is based on subscription."

"We have the licensing fee, and we are also paying a third party to maintain it with an SLA. There is no infrastructure cost, but its running costs are higher than expected. There is the cost of the Azure cloud, which is pricier than expected, but it is not specific to SQL Azure. It is specific to the cloud. You expect it to be cheaper, but it is more expensive to run it."

"The pricing is actually complicated, and that is probably one downside of it. In some respects, although we can plan for the costs on a month-by-month basis, we are finding it hard to project our costings for it. Fundamentally, Microsoft is offering two pricing models, and it is challenging to understand the differences between the two. We're basically on the DTU model at the moment. That may change in the future as the size grows, but it is one of those things that we'll end up monitoring as we progress. At the moment, to get a reasonable response, generally, the price is a little high for us, but it is one of those things for which we know that we can do improvements on our code. So, it is not just the service that's the problem; it is some of the things that we need to do as well."

"We pay less than $1000 monthly in licensing fees. There are no additional costs."

"It is reasonable."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

University

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

71%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon RDS?

The product's installation phase is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon RDS?

I find the pricing of Amazon RDS fair, as AWS operates on a pay-for-what-you-use model. Auto scalability helps handle varying demand, making it cost-efficient without overprovisioning resources.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?

For improvements, Amazon RDS could work on more features for multi-availability zone deployment to enhance higher availability, and on simplifying migration for those transitioning from on-premises...

See all answers

What do you like most about SQL Azure?

The automated scalability feature of SQL Azure has proven to be highly beneficial, particularly when deployed in the cloud.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SQL Azure?

While the pricing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is good, obtaining an estimate of monthly costs based on specific needs was challenging. Initially, Microsoft asked us to sign up and use the servi...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SQL Azure?

One area for improvement is the need for accurate cost estimates. When I initially tried to set it up, I could not get an accurate quote on what my monthly costs would be based on my needs.

See all answers

Comparisons

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

Compared 31% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon RDS

Compared 23% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 16% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Amazon RDS

Compared 4% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Amazon RDS

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon RDS Competitors

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 41% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Db2 on Cloud vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 2% of the time

vCloud Air vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS

December 2024

Download Amazon RDS product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

December 2024

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database product report

Also Known As

RDS

No data available

Learn More

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Microsoft

Overview

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a web service that makes it easier to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient, resizeable capacity for an industry-standard relational database and manages common database administration tasks.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a-service that delivers predictable performance, scalability, business continuity, data protection, and near-zero administration to cloud developers and solution architects. This is the deep technical library for Azure SQL Database.

Sample Customers

Edmodo

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

December 2024

Free Report: Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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