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 #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 25.6% mindshare in DS, compared to Microsoft’s 17.5% 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 52 Amazon RDS reviews

6,931 Views
5,722 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 93 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

8,813 Views
3,826 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: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

October 2024

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score

8.3

Amazon RDS support quality varies by tier, with costs and regional differences impacting accessibility and user satisfaction.

Sentiment score

8.6

Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers knowledgeable support but faces criticism for slow response times and accessibility issues.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

The customer support is hard to reach, with Microsoft’s technical support being difficult to get in touch with.

Michael Hamlett

Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure SQL Database report

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score

7.0

Amazon RDS needs enhanced migration tools, support, security, and user interface, with improved integration, performance monitoring, and documentation.

Sentiment score

5.3

Microsoft Azure SQL Database needs enhanced security, cost-efficiency, better integration, improved automation, and comprehensive documentation for user satisfaction.

Simplifying migration for those transitioning from on-premises to cloud environments.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

I could not get an accurate quote on what my monthly costs would be based on my needs.

Michael Hamlett

Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure SQL Database report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

10.0

Amazon RDS is highly regarded for its scalability and user efficiency, despite some challenges with large data sets.

Sentiment score

7.6

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is highly scalable, flexible, and reliable, easily handling varying demands and adjusting resources efficiently.

Its automated scaling, both in storage and instances, is vital as it eliminates manual interventions.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

Scaling the solution is incredibly simple and involves just clicking a button or dragging a slider.

Michael Hamlett

Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure SQL Database report

Setup Cost

No sentiment score available

Amazon RDS pricing is mixed; users value pay-as-you-go but find costs unpredictable, despite competitive features and flexibility.

Sentiment score

7.1

Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing varies by usage, offering flexibility, but can be complex with regional and subscription factors.

While Azure provides great services, long-term plans on AWS are 20% to 30% cheaper.

Karthikeyan Katkam

AWS Engineer at Neurolov.ai

I find the pricing of Amazon RDS fair, as AWS operates on a pay-for-what-you-use model.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

While the pricing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is good, obtaining an estimate of monthly costs based on specific needs was challenging.

Michael Hamlett

Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure SQL Database report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Amazon RDS is stable with reliable performance, successfully handling infrastructure changes, especially when properly configured with MySQL and Postgres.

Sentiment score

7.9

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is highly reliable and stable, with excellent performance and security features, despite concerns about future scalability.

Amazon RDS is very stable when deployed correctly across different zones with the right configurations.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure SQL Database report

Valuable Features

Sentiment score

9.0

Amazon RDS offers fully managed, scalable, and secure database services with automatic backups, supporting multiple databases and AWS integration.

Sentiment score

8.3

Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers scalability, high availability, seamless Microsoft integration, robust security, and ease of use with automatic backups.

Amazon RDS provides data encryption using services like KMS, crucial for securing high-sensitive data and meeting compliance requirements such as HIPAA or PCI DSS.

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

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

Karthikeyan Katkam

AWS Engineer at Neurolov.ai

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon RDS report

Some of the best features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database are its scalability, pricing, and ease of setup.

Michael Hamlett

Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure SQL Database report

Categories and Ranking

Amazon RDS

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 25.6%, down from 28.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 17.5%, 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.

Read full review

DineshKumar27

Solution architect at Rackspace

Offers high-availability features with different price points and licensing models for users

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 aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in the product. I am sure that the tool does all sorts of quality checks before releasing the product in the market, but there are thousands of different environments today where users use the solution for their own purposes and customize it to fit their business requirements. In some cases, there may be some bugs that users need to fix, and many of them might even fix it as well. As SQL Azure is available as a cloud-based tool, it helps to maintain uniformity in the environment, so the number of issues is reduced significantly.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

University

Educational Organization

70%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

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 would rate the pricing between six and seven. The cost is manageable because you can see the expense associated with each instance and utilize tools for tagging and cost control. However, a commo...

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What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?

They could provide better integration for the solution with Microsoft products. Although this may be challenging due to competitive interests, enhanced integration could significantly benefit users...

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?

SQL Azure is an expensive solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SQL Azure?

The solution’s pricing needs improvement because it is too high.

See all answers

Comparisons

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

Compared 32% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon RDS

Compared 22% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 15% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Amazon RDS

Compared 4% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Amazon RDS

Compared 3% 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 17% 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

November 2024

Download Amazon RDS product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

November 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

October 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: October 2024.

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See our Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database report.

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We monitor all Database as a Service (DBaaS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.