Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud SQL comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google are both solutions in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2, while Google is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.9. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 23.4% mindshare in DS, compared to Google’s 14.3% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Google users who would recommend it.

Amazon RDS

Read 56 Amazon RDS reviews

4,010 Views
3,355 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Google Cloud SQL

Read 22 Google Cloud SQL reviews

2,438 Views
2,197 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon RDS

Google Cloud SQL

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Amazon RDS and Google Cloud SQL compete in the managed database services category. Amazon RDS appears to have the upper hand due to its deployment agility and extensive feature set, though Google Cloud SQL offers more competitive pricing within Google's ecosystem.

Features: Amazon RDS provides automated backups, multi-availability zone resilience, and supports multiple database engines such as MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL, simplifying deployment and scalability. Google Cloud SQL features high availability, seamless integration with Google services, and automatic scaling, although it lacks the diverse database support offered by RDS.

Room for Improvement: Amazon RDS could improve in areas like migration processes, shell access for experienced DBAs, and its pricing structure that requires careful cost provisioning. Google Cloud SQL can enhance its user interface, documentation, and connectivity with additional tools, while also improving support for data migration and advanced configuration options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Amazon RDS and Google Cloud SQL are public cloud solutions, with Amazon RDS offering stronger hybrid and on-premises support. Customer service varies for both, influenced by the purchased support level, though Amazon is often noted for additional costs associated with comprehensive support.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon RDS tends to cost more due to its extensive capabilities, requiring careful management to avoid unexpected charges. It provides value by reducing operational overhead. Google Cloud SQL is more budget-friendly, with straightforward and lower base costs, appealing to those who prioritize cost over features. Each solution's ROI differs based on organizational needs and existing tech stacks.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon RDS vs. Google Cloud SQL Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. Google Cloud SQL

June 2025

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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:

Categories and Ranking

Amazon RDS

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Google Cloud SQL

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 23.4%, down from 26.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud SQL is 14.3%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

Samuel Ebite

AICE Graduate at alx_africa

Ensure high availability with robust encryption and seamless 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. The best practices we've employed with RDS help design a well-architected framework, encompassing security, encryption, scalability with multi-availability zone deployment, and operational excellence with automated backups. RDS features, such as reserved instances, storage auto-scaling, monitoring with technologies like CloudWatch, and proxies, contribute to cost optimization. The solution enhances security with IAM authentication and offers high availability to end users.

Read full review

Prathap Sankar

Analytics Delivery Manager at Tredence Inc.

Gain control and flexibility with customizable tools but has slower performance

I am majorly working in Google Cloud SQL for building my applications Google Cloud SQL provides complete customization options, along with a dashboarding tool and a comprehensive suite of tools that can be used to customize and build any application needed. The deployment model allows for…

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 is a scalable solution."

"It offers an easy-to-use interface that allows me to monitor instances and update necessary features conveniently."

"The solution is good for on-premise deployments."

"The product's most valuable features are option groups, S3 integration, automated and scheduled snapshots, and cross-region replication."

"Amazon RDS fulfills PCI requirements, which is a valuable feature for us."

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

"One of the most valuable features is that it is serverless, so we don't have to worry about scaling."

"I use Amazon RDS to support scalability, with multi-AZ support being an essential aspect."

More Amazon RDS pros

"From a database management perspective, it provides services without the need for me to worry about backups, scaling, or other operational issues."

"It's SQL. SQL is so easy if you know something about databases. It's easy to learn."

"It is not the cool features that I find valuable, it is the stability of Google Cloud Platform."

"The setup was straightforward. Just a couple of clicks, and we were done."

"My suggestion to anyone thinking about this solution is to jump into it head-first!"

"I found its storage and security to be the most valuable. It was a good experience. It is also very stable and scalable, and its support is perfect."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"What I like the most about Google Cloud SQL is that it handles the management, which allows us to concentrate on our applications."

More Google Cloud SQL pros

Cons

"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."

"The response time and the number of iterations required for the product's technical support could be improved."

"Technical support could be better."

"The backup and restore processes take more time compared to other providers. For instance, if DigitalOcean takes two minutes to restore or create a backup, AWS will take 2 to 3 minutes."

"I would like to see improvements in the tool's automatic restart."

"Amazon RDS should have a more user-friendly graphical user interface and include better database management options."

"There are some advanced monitoring queries that we cannot execute because Amazon doesn't give admin privileges to the end users."

"The security features could be improved."

More Amazon RDS cons

"Google Cloud SQL still needs better connectivity to outside, existing data sources."

"The overall documentation and the connectors need improvement."

"The most challenging part is dealing with legacy data from your old systems and migrating it into the new setup, but once you've completed the data migration, it becomes quite convenient to use."

"Google's technical support is good, but they tend to never reopen a case and to send us snippets from the publicly available documentation. It's not as helpful as you would expect, not just for Google Cloud SQL but for all of Google Cloud products."

"Google Cloud SQL needs to improve its support for high-end I/O operations. On-prem systems with high I/O capabilities perform better, as Google Cloud SQL takes more time to handle the same tasks."

"The most vulnerable problem with Google SQL is that while you can customize your access control list, it provides you with a public IP address."

"The performance compared to AWS is not as fast, and the technical support could be better as they don't have a dedicated team, but mostly AI handles the support now."

"The customer support should be improved."

More Google Cloud SQL cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is manageable because you can see the expense associated with each instance and utilize tools for tagging and cost control."

"The solution is fairly priced."

"I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."

"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."

"The price could be better."

"It is less expensive than SQL Server. We pay based on the usage on a monthly basis."

"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."

More Amazon RDS pricing and cost advice

"It is not expensive, especially considering the significant reduction in database management time."

"From a financial perspective, Google Cloud SQL is on the cheaper side."

"The pricing is very much an important factor as to why we use this solution."

"You need to pay extra costs for backup and replication."

"The solution is affordable."

"While the platform’s pricing may be higher, it aligns with industry standards, considering the quality of service and features provided."

"It's really cheap. It wouldn't be more than, I believe it's around 50 euro per month for running a cloud SQL."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

University

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

University

Educational Organization

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?

The pricing for Amazon RDS is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?

User interface needs improvement for using IPS and cloud watch to scale and utilize read replicas, enabling performance insights to view query formats where the bottlenecks occur, identifying the f...

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Cloud SQL?

The implementation part of the product was easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud SQL?

The cost is expensive, especially for services like BigQuery, which charge based on query operations. We pay as we use, with no fixed cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Cloud SQL?

Google Cloud SQL needs to improve its support for high-end I/O operations. On-prem systems with high I/O capabilities perform better, as Google Cloud SQL takes more time to handle the same tasks. T...

See all answers

Comparisons

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

Compared 25% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Amazon RDS

Compared 15% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Amazon RDS

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Amazon RDS

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon RDS Competitors

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 38% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 8% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 4% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 2% of the time

More Google Cloud SQL Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS

June 2025

Download Amazon RDS product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud SQL

June 2025

Download Google Cloud SQL product report

Also Known As

RDS

No data available

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.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Google Cloud SQL is a fully-managed database service that makes it easy to set up, maintain, manage, and administer your relational PostgreSQL and MySQL databases in the cloud. Google Cloud SQL offers high performance, scalability, and convenience. Hosted on Google Cloud Platform, Cloud SQL provides a database infrastructure for applications running anywhere.

Google

Sample Customers

Edmodo

BeDataDriven, CodeFutures, Daffodil, GenieConnect, KiSSFLOW, LiveHive, SulAm_rica, Zync

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. Google Cloud SQL

June 2025

Free Report: Amazon RDS vs. Google Cloud SQL

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon RDS vs. Google Cloud SQL and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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