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Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud Spanner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Amazon RDS
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (9th)
Google Cloud Spanner
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 11.9%, down from 24.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 7.9%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon RDS11.9%
Google Cloud Spanner7.9%
Other80.2%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

BS
AWS Architect at Virtual University
Customer support and automated backups offer reliability while ease of deployment enhances user experience
The features of Amazon RDS that I have found most valuable include web and mobile applications, enterprise applications, data warehousing and analytics, and software as a service platforms, along with dev testing environments, disaster recoveries, and backups. The mobile app backend and development environment is also the best feature for database management for my customers. Database management is effective in Amazon RDS because it offers automated backups, high availability, read replicas, and support from multiple database engineers, while also providing security, monitoring and metrics, scalability. We are using snapshots and database migrations as well as performance optimization. The impact of Amazon RDS scalability and backup has been positive, with good vertical scaling, scale up and down, horizontal scaling, and storage scaling. The performance was good and availability helped with reducing downtime.
LJ
System Architect at UST Global España
Offers good performance to users
The tool lacks to offer AI features. In the future, I would like the product to offer AI features to users. Nowadays, we are creating small acronyms for our SQL Server. We put some templates. If I just put your name and stop it, the entire cloud can be explored, but such features are not there in Google Cloud Spanner. As a layman rather than a developer, if I create a tool or a procedure. If I write a procedure and then when you describe a procedure, a dummy procedure will be written for you, and it will be available for you as a template in SQL Server, but such kind features are not there in Google Cloud Spanner.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Amazon RDS is lightweight and flexible, and it's a secure solution."
"Relational databases excel in extensive normalization, eliminating data redundancy and efficiently structuring tables which leads to a clear and efficient relationship between tables using primary keys."
"Amazon RDS fulfills PCI requirements, which is a valuable feature for us."
"Amazon RDS is very easy to use."
"Amazon RDS is quite a well-managed and stable service...The initial setup was very easy."
"The solution has unique features like backup and recovery, and snapshots. It upgrades automatically. The solution offers easy analytics concerning performance metrics. Its reliability and scalability are very good. The tool's most valuable features are disaster recovery, high availability and scalability."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon RDS is its performance."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its scalability. Scalability comes with two options, among which Google Cloud Spanner can scale horizontally, compared to other relational databases that scale vertically."
"We can scale the solution if we need to."
"The application deployment in the cloud is the best feature of the infrastructure."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."
"It is a very scalable solution."
 

Cons

"Need to have in depth understanding of cost, else we are in position to pay more, which makes us think our own DB is better when cost is very huge amount."
"With SQL Server, we have access to the SQL Server analysis services and reporting services, but such services are not available with Amazon RDS."
"The product's high price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Sometimes the interface has many moving parts, which is a concern."
"The security features could be improved."
"The solution could improve the administration tools."
"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."
"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."
"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."
"I want to improve the deployment of cameras and surveillance infrastructure."
"Google came up with something called Cloud Spanner Emulator, which fails to work like the real product if I want to develop some code and run a database locally on my machine."
"The tool lacks to offer AI features."
"The cost can be a bit high."
"The cost can be a bit high."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS is becoming pretty expensive because cheap or absolutely free services have become paid services. Amazon RDS is not an expensive product, but Amazon's ecosystem is becoming increasingly expensive."
"The solution's pricing needs improvement."
"The price of Amazon RDS is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing of RDS is a little bit high compared to Microsoft... However, it is a good price compared to other solutions."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"Amazon RDS is not a very expensive solution."
"On a scale from one to ten, where ten is the most expensive, and one is the cheapest, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Google Cloud Spanner is an expensive solution."
"Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side."
"It is expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Media Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise22
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?
Currently, I cannot think of any major improvements. Perhaps more platforms in terms of database engine versions would be beneficial. Right now, Amazon RDS supports MySQL and PostgreSQL, but there ...
What is your primary use case for Amazon RDS?
I am a Solutions Architect, so I design solutions for our clients. Prior to this role, I was an implementation engineer, so I also implement solutions for our customers.
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Spanner?
Google Cloud Spanner has all the features of a traditional relational database, including schemas, SQL queries, ACID transactions, and provides excellent integration and monitoring tools as well as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Spanner?
Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side. I am not sure if this is a rumor or if it's fake news, but I believe that having BigQuery and GCP together could be a little cos...
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Spanner?
The tool lacks to offer AI features. In the future, I would like the product to offer AI features to users. Nowadays, we are creating small acronyms for our SQL Server. We put some templates. If I ...
 

Also Known As

RDS
Google Spanner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edmodo
Streak, Optiva, Mixpanel
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon RDS vs. Google Cloud Spanner and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.