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Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud Spanner comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
59
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 October 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 12.7%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 7.3%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon RDS12.7%
Google Cloud Spanner7.3%
Other80.0%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Donny Trijatmiko - PeerSpot reviewer
Dev Ops Engineer at MyRobin.ID
Managed databases have simplified recovery and high availability for AI recruitment workloads
The features of Amazon RDS that I have found most valuable and useful so far are its fully managed service, point-in-time restore, and other serverless features such as snapshots and backups, which have eased my job to manage databases. The automated backups of Amazon RDS help in data recovery by mitigating disaster recovery. I can revert to the nearest time if there is any data corruption or other issues, and this helps tremendously. I assess Amazon RDS's read replica feature for improving application performance as good. For standby nodes in Amazon RDS, I am using them for high failover, and so far it has been performing well. I have used Amazon RDS's Multi-AZ deployments, and it helps enhance data availability by providing high failover. It enhances high availability for my application as well.
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

"The solution is scalable and can be configured with AWS Secrets Manager."
"Amazon RDS is good for backups, auto-scanning, and disaster recovery. It's also appropriate for the office server."
"For me, RDS is a great solution, and I like that Amazon RDS is a very simple solution to implement and to start using."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it requires an easy setup phase, and it is also easy to use while not being too heavy on its users."
"I found it to be a stable solution."
"Amazon RDS gives us the ability to select as many tools, replicas, regions, and zones as we want."
"Amazon RDS is quite a well-managed and stable service...The initial setup was very easy."
"Aurora, the RDS product, is excellent."
"The application deployment in the cloud is the best feature of the infrastructure."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"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."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."
 

Cons

"The performance is not always as good as MySQL running on its own EC2 instance."
"The solution could improve the administration tools."
"The Performance Monitor they have is a little clanky, at least in regards to the UI."
"There are some advanced monitoring queries that we cannot execute because Amazon doesn't give admin privileges to the end users."
"I would like to see improvements in the tool's automatic restart."
"RDS doesn't have shell access."
"I don't think it's very scalable. In comparison, Microsoft Azure has many options."
"Amazon RDS needs to have an overall dashboard where I can view all the tables in the form of pie charts and Gantt charts. The deployment is complex, and we would like to see automated scripts. It needs to incorporate performance insights."
"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 cost can be a bit high."
"The tool lacks to offer AI features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The substantial initial credit and cost-effectiveness make Amazon an attractive option."
"We are paying for a service license."
"The solution's price is good."
"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."
"I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"It is less expensive than SQL Server. We pay based on the usage on a monthly basis."
"The platform pricing is on the higher side, but given its capabilities and ease of use, it remains competitive."
"The solution is expensive."
"Google Cloud Spanner is an expensive solution."
"Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side."
"It is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise24
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?
I think Amazon RDS can be improved or enhanced if it can be implemented with other monitoring tools such as Percona. Currently, I am trying to add Percona monitoring for monitoring in addition to i...
What is your primary use case for Amazon RDS?
Amazon RDS is typically used for AI applications. I am developing it for an AI recruitment agent and for collecting data for HRIS, Software as a Service for a workforce as a service, and storing data.
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...
 

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: September 2026.
915,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.