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 8.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 24.7% mindshare in DS, compared to Microsoft’s 15.9% 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 54 Amazon RDS reviews

4,861 Views
4,099 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 117 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

5,959 Views
2,686 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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

April 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)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

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

117

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 24.7%, down from 27.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 15.9%, 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

Charley Hanania

Data Platform Specialist at QS2 AG - Quality Software Solutions

It is very easy to implement, manage, and offers great insights into what is happening inside the engine

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is integrated into other Azure capabilities and has a great foundation being on SQL Server with a long history of security, performance, and usability from a DBA perspective. Once you've set up a server, adding databases is easy. There's a minor challenge with having data in separate databases that you want to connect like we do on premises. I'm looking forward to using some of these new AI-driven functions that have come out around vectorization. Having the data closer to my transactional databases or data makes it easy to augment and enhance the Database and applications I currently use. It's great that Azure SQL now seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Fabric. It's a first-tier service in the cloud that connects to web applications and other databases. The data transformation orchestration capabilities within Database Factory and similar capabilities make it effortless to move that stuff forward.

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

"The solution is scalable and can be configured with AWS Secrets Manager."

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

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

"Being able to change the size of an RDS MySQL instance is amazing."

"The solution’s scalability, usability, and availability are valuable to us."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Amazon RDS pros

"Microsoft is at the forefront of databases, and everyone uses SQL."

"The stability is good and the performance is fantastic. Even when we try to do an inquiry into issues we can do it easily."

"The most valuable feature of SQL Azure is the user-friendly VMs."

"I like that Microsoft Azure SQL Database is almost identical to an on-premise SQL Server except for a few things, like how you edit rows and some jobs that you can't run."

"The scalability and simple management of the infrastructure are the most valuable features."

"Since SQL Azure is a stable solution, you do not need to spend time to maintain it."

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

"It's the type of product that doesn't need much technical support assistance as it works seamlessly."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

"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 only thing that needs improvement would be the pricing of the solution."

"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 to cloud environments."

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

"The Amazon RDS engine could provide features for additional databases, such as Db2. It could also provide support for other databases, such as NoSQL databases, DynamoDB, and Apache Cassandra. They could all stay under one hood."

"I feel Amazon RDS should have a lot of functionalities to make monitoring within the database easier."

"In the next release, it would be great to see RDS provide connection pooling out of the box."

"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."

More Amazon RDS cons

"We need improvement in the latency between availability zones. The managed SQL MI does not allow us to control the zone it runs in, which affects latency."

"The user interface (UI) could be more flexible."

"The problem is the automated configuration."

"It would help if the solution was more secure."

"The solution has to scale up its expertise for hosting Oracle."

"SQL Azure could improve by adding more features."

"It's very difficult to investigate if something wrong is going on behind the scenes. If we are facing a problem that our application is doing a CPU spike and when we look at the dump of the details, the processes that our application is generating are not consuming more than 40-50% of CPU. But we don’t know where it is going, who's generating it, and who's consuming the CPU. Even Microsoft says they don’t know."

"There are some limitations for cross-database queries and features. The migration of data from older systems should be easier. For deployment, there are too many options, which sometimes makes it difficult to figure out the best option. There is not enough information to help you to find the best option for deployment. There should be more documentation about this."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is good."

"Amazon RDS is cheaper compared to other tools."

"if you don't know how to optimize and use your tool properly, the cost might hurt you."

"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."

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

"The prices for different regions are different."

"By using a combination of Reserve Instances and On-Demand pricing, you can reduce the cost."

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

More Amazon RDS pricing and cost advice

"From a licensing benefit standpoint, we have clients who are coming with their own SQL licensing with Software Assurance, and they are able to use those licenses for their Azure SQL and reduce costs."

"The solution is more cost-effective than Google BigQuery. Compared to Google BigQuery, downloading data can be more expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"If we use a smaller or free-sized Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it is extremely cost-effective and much cheaper than on-premise enterprise licenses, which are expensive."

"I am not aware of the exact pricing, but our monthly bill for Azure is around 80,000. It is less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage."

"It is expensive for us. We are looking for something less expensive and thinking of migrating the whole system."

"Compared to other providers, the pricing is definitely on the affordable side."

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

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

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?

The pricing for Amazon RDS is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?

One key improvement would be adding support for multi-storage paradigms, including columnar support, as seen in TiDB. The serverless support with Aurora could also be enhanced. Additionally, having...

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?

The pricing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap, affecting user uptake. A gradual reduction in price could improve accessibility and user numbers, making it easier for users to adopt the s...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SQL Azure?

Pricing could be improved to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database ( /products/microsoft-azure-sql-database-reviews ) more accessible. A reduction in price might encourage more users and bring more pro...

See all answers

Comparisons

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

Compared 27% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon RDS

Compared 21% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 18% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Amazon RDS

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Amazon RDS

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon RDS Competitors

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 38% 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 7% of the time

vCloud Air vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 3% of the time

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS

May 2025

Download Amazon RDS product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

May 2025

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database 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)

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.

Microsoft

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

April 2025

Free Report: Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

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