The solution helps us to move databases from on-premises to other areas.
Helps to move databases form place to place and is easy to deploy and maintain
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon RDS is easy to maintain and easy to deploy."
- "The running cost could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Amazon RDS has helped in reducing the median cost for on-prem services.
What is most valuable?
Amazon RDS is easy to maintain and easy to deploy.
What needs improvement?
The running cost could be improved.
Buyer's Guide
Amazon RDS
August 2026
Learn what your peers think about Amazon RDS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. I rate it eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution's scalability depends on the application. There are no fixed users. I plan to increase the usage of the solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, I used Oracle SQL but switched to Amazon RDS because it's easy to manage and easy to set.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. For the deployment, one has to prepare the pipeline and set up the security configuration. The complete deployment takes a couple of days. Three software engineers are required in the deployment process. I rate the setup an eight out of ten.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others to use the solution as it is easy to deploy, but they will need to take care of the running cost.
I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Team Lead at Midland Credit Management, Inc.
A scalable and resilient solution with a support team that provides timely support
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is scalable and can be configured with AWS Secrets Manager."
- "If we do not keep track of our costs, we might face some problems."
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution to store the data of the applications we run on AWS Lambda.
What is most valuable?
The solution is scalable and can be configured with AWS Secrets Manager. So our password is secure. Also, due to Amazon RDS Multi-AZ, other nodes are available for us if we face a problem in a particular zone. This functionality makes the solution resilient.
What needs improvement?
If we do not keep track of our costs, we might face some problems.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for more than three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is quite stable. We haven't seen any issues in the last three years. Since we are using Amazon RDS Multi-AZ, other nodes are available on the machine, even if the solution is down. I rate the stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the scalability a seven out of ten. Multiple teams in our organization are using the solution.
How are customer service and support?
We get a timely response from the support team when we raise issues.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is quite easy. If we know the configuration, we can run the system, and our database will be ready in 10 to 15 minutes.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If we use the product wisely, we can optimize the cost. The cost depends on the kind of instance we use.
What other advice do I have?
The solution helps us to provide a serverless database. There are multiple servers available in case someone has a high workload. We must understand whether our application is a read-heavy application or a write-heavy application. Accordingly, we must choose the right instance. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Amazon RDS
August 2026
Learn what your peers think about Amazon RDS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Head Of Information Technology at Bquate Music
High performance, reliable, and straightforward setup
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Amazon RDS is its performance."
- "The solution could improve the administration tools."
What is our primary use case?
Amazon RDS helps with information regarding the customer's business performance.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution has helped us have valuable metrics on our customer's business.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Amazon RDS is its performance.
What needs improvement?
The solution could improve the administration tools.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon RDS for approximately three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Amazon RDS is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We do not have plans to increase the usage of the solution.
How are customer service and support?
I have not used the support from the vendor.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
What was our ROI?
We have seen an ROI using the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Amazon RDS is less expensive than other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Amazon RDS a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
DevOps DBA at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Has excellent scalability and provisions resources quickly
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's customer service is excellent."
- "They should add a feature for manual SQL patching in RDS."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution to migrate products from on-premises to AWS environment.
What is most valuable?
The solution's most valuable feature is the provisioning of products. We don't have to worry about storage approval or hardware availability using this feature. It is the most accessible feature in RDS.
What needs improvement?
They should add a feature for manual SQL patching in RDS. Also, the auto-patching features have their limitations. We can't set a particular day or date of the month for auto-maintenance.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have never come across any issues regarding the solution's stability. The database uptime works fine.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is one of the solution's best features.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's customer service is excellent.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The solution's initial setup is straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution's pricing needs improvement. I rate it as a six.
What other advice do I have?
If they have to segregate the databases into different RDS databases, it will cost almost the same or even more than any on-premises migration.
I rate the solution as an eight because it quickly provisions the resources. It covers all the security and governance parameters as well.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Cloud and Infrastructure Engineer at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Simple and quick implementation, but technology could improve
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable aspect of Amazon RDS is it is on the cloud."
- "Amazon RDS could improve by having more sophisticated. I use other solutions that have better technology for more difficult tasks."
What is our primary use case?
Amazon RDS is used for SQL Databases.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect of Amazon RDS is it is on the cloud.
What needs improvement?
Amazon RDS could improve by having more sophisticated. I use other solutions that have better technology for more difficult tasks.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon RDS for approximately two years.
The version of Amazon RDS depends on the database being used.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution depends on the RDS being used. For example, Aurora is not stable but Postgres is. The stability could improve.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the scalability of Amazon RDS a six out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The level or quality of support depends on how much you are paying for support. If you are paying for premium support then it will be better than the standard support offering.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Amazon RDS is simple. The deployment is quick because of automation. It can be done in less than 10 minutes.
The solution does not require human intervention for deployment. You can simply load it into the pipeline and the pipeline will deploy it automatically.
I rate the initial setup of Amazon RDS a ten out of ten.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Amazon RDS could improve by reducing the price.
I rate the price of Amazon RDS an eight out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
We have a few engineers doing the maintenance of the solution. They maintain the standardized code that everyone uses.
My advice to others is for them to use a different solution, such as Aurora, DynamoDB, or MongoDB. Amazon RDS is only used if the user wants to use a legacy-type application.
This is a well-established solution.
I rate Amazon RDS a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Cloud Engineer/ Data Architect at a government with 201-500 employees
It's good for backups, auto-scanning, and disaster recovery
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon RDS is good for backups, auto-scanning, and disaster recovery. It's also appropriate for the office server."
- "AWS support is decent, but it's not as good as before. Sometimes, we get junior staff who are unable to answer our questions. It also depends on the support team you get. Support based in Europe and Australia is better than US support. For example, European support is quick to deliver the right answer. US support handles routine maintenance issues, and it's mostly junior staff who don't know the product well."
What is our primary use case?
We use Amazon RDS for our Oracle Learning system. About five clients or so use it for that. We also offer a database service using Oracle, Amazon RDS, and Microsoft SQL Server RDS for our rental clients.
What is most valuable?
Amazon RDS is good for backups, auto-scanning, and disaster recovery. It's also appropriate for the office server.
What needs improvement?
An RDS account cannot be shared when you close it. You need an encryption key to clone the data, but you cannot share it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Amazon RDS for more than seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is an issue. It doesn't handle large data sets well, so we use a different solution for those. This is a limitation of RDBMs, and data doubles every two years.
How are customer service and support?
AWS support is decent, but it's not as good as before. Sometimes, we get junior staff who are unable to answer our questions. It also depends on the support team you get. Support based in Europe and Australia is better than US support. For example, European support is quick to deliver the right answer. US support handles routine maintenance issues, and it's mostly junior staff who don't know the product well.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use multiple solutions from various vendors. It's better to compare Amazon RDS to AWS Aura and MySQL. You pay more with Aura, and it cannot handle our scheduled databases.
How was the initial setup?
I rate Amazon RDS nine out of 10 for ease of setup.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Amazon RDS eight out of 10 overall.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Electrical Engineer at Strathmore University
A solution with quick deployment, but the interface could be improved
Pros and Cons
- "The IT is easy to set up, which is the best."
- "I appreciate how Amazon RDS allows me to choose the kind of database I want."
- "Sometimes the interface has many moving parts, which is a concern."
What is our primary use case?
I use this solution because I am trying to develop a fintech application.
How has it helped my organization?
It takes off a load in setting up the VM, infrastructure, software and user accounts that go with databases.
What is most valuable?
I appreciate how Amazon RDS allows me to choose the kind of database I want. The IT is easy to set up, which is the best. It makes it easy to deploy quickly. I initially tried setting up a database on a local machine and realized that several requirements were needed. I needed to do a lot of infrastructure management.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes the interface has many moving parts, which is a concern. For example, the cloud is a virtual network instead of having a dedicated VPC that handles databases, and they have it connected to the VPC that handles the main Amazon infrastructure.
If I had one that was indicated, it would make things easier because there are specific things I need when connecting to ensure accessibility. There is no need for multiple settings, considering a database cannot survive independently. Amazon RDS needs a connection to be a client, so they should tune it a bit more. In addition, uploading and having it done within a short period is challenging.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution for the past seven months, and we use the latest version. It is deployed on the cloud, public AWS.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has good availability, and so far, we haven't had any issues with it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't reached the point where we need to scale up for performance or storage. But I don't think manually scaling the discs is easy to do, so it should be able to scale on its own. In addition, the instances can manage the traffic, and there's an option for setting each total scale. So depending on how production goes, we may scale it. We have three people using the solution, including myself. So we need only one person to maintain.
How are customer service and support?
We haven't contacted technical support because we haven't encountered any issues.
How was the initial setup?
I completed the deployment myself. We're using local databases on a local host to test and deploy it.
What was our ROI?
We do not have any return on investment because we are still testing.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not have specific details about the pricing, but we use the solution on demand. I rate the pricing a six out of ten, with one being the most expensive and ten being the cheapest. We have to pay extra for monitoring services.
What other advice do I have?
I rate this solution a seven out of ten. Regarding advice, learning from other good consoles and having the basics before approaching them is essential.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Architect - Database Administration at Mitra Innovation
Resilient, reliable, and easy to set up
Pros and Cons
- "The time to install or set up a database environment is very fast."
- "Even a person with basic knowledge would be able to spin up an RDS without an issue."
- "The solution is a bit expensive."
What is our primary use case?
Whatever is to be stored, for example, any database requirements, you can use RDS, unless you need to scale it to quite a large size, RDS could be a good solution. You can still go beyond RDS, however, basically for small to medium-sized database requirements, you can always reliably use RDS as a database solution.
What is most valuable?
The first thing I like about RDS is the on-prem implementation. The time to install or set up a database environment is very fast.
The resilience, multi-zone resilience, and availability are great. We don't need to extensively create any replication services or anything that we have to worry about as DBAs. Everything is given. It's just a matter of punching in the parameters and in the background, it all that is configured.
The initial setup is straightforward.
It's scalable.
The solution is reliable and stable.
What needs improvement?
If you are a very tech-savvy guy who is a DBA, there are certain limitations due to how it's been implemented. You cannot do a lot of platform-level changes if that's how it's been set up, however, it's not required actually. Those limitations have not stopped anything, not stopped us from doing anything. That said, someone more technical may not like the limitations. Platform-level changes are not allowed.
The solution is a bit expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been dealing with the solution for the last eight months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't experienced any stability and can therefore say it's reliable and the performance is good. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I've found the solution to be scalable.
I have worked with only three clients at the moment with RDS.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support has been very good.
How was the initial setup?
The implementation process is straightforward. The instructions are very clear. Even a person with basic knowledge would be able to spin up an RDS without an issue. It's not very complicated. The parameters are simple. You can read and understand everything very easily and know what questions to ask and what parameters to consider.
One staff member is more than enough for deployment and maintenance.
You don't need a separate staff for the RDS management. A regular person who manages the rest of the Amazon services can easily monitor it. It has a very good service called CloudWatch, Amazon CloudWatch. Through CloudWatch, everything could be monitored very, very well. All these services are auto-scale. Alerts can be automated as well. I've done this for clients. We have it configured in a way where it's very easy to maintain and manage. We don't need to continuously monitor or anything. We have set thresholds and that CloudWatch service actually helps us to do the monitoring part automatically.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Across most of the database services, it had been a little expensive. It's not only Amazon. If you look at other cloud solution providers, they have to reconsider bringing the prices down. Some clients might not be able to reap their ROI the way that the pricing has been structured for RDS services. It was quite expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I'm an implementer.
I'd recommend the solution. It would be perfect for whoever starts a small or medium business. This is the go-to database they should consider.
I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Implementer
Database Administrator at Cartrack
It gives us the ability to select as many tools, replicas, regions, and zones as we want
Pros and Cons
- "Amazon RDS gives us the ability to select as many tools, replicas, regions, and zones as we want."
- "RDS is stable, a cloud solution is always stable, and RDS servers are solid."
- "Some of the features will not be there. For example, some on-premises things we want to set up will not be supported there. There are some challenges that they are fixing."
What is our primary use case?
We have on-prem servers and our database is hosted in the cloud on Amazon RDS. Everything is automated there, like setting up backups and replication. We have around 40 persons using RDS.
What is most valuable?
Amazon RDS gives us the ability to select as many tools, replicas, regions, and zones as we want.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used Amazon RDS for six or seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
RDS is stable. A cloud solution is always stable, and RDS servers are solid.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Amazon RDS is highly scalable. It is much simpler to scale up compared to an on-premise solution where you need to buy new hardware and migrate all the data. Ifwe need more capacity, there is a symbol that you can click on to upgrade your hardware.
If you want one more server in a different region, you can spin it up and everything is done on the cloud. You can just select what you need and go, whether you're going to downgrade or upgrade to system type TX for whatever configuration you want.
How are customer service and support?
Amazon support is good, but we've only communicated with them via email so far. We email support when we have questions, and they've always come up with the proper solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Amazon, we had MySQL and PostgreSQL, but it's not like we switched We still have on-premise solutions and some things in the cloud. Most of our stuff is still on-prem. It depends on if it's a critical application that is heavily used, so you don't have downtime.
How was the initial setup?
Installation is straightforward. You choose your database for RDS, like MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc., and select the distance type. It takes a maximum of five minutes time to select and set up the system. Our servers can be up and running in 10 to 15 minutes, and data migration took about an hour.
What about the implementation team?
We have several in-house teams with separate databases, so they usually take care of it for us. I worked on some databases. We have a different method for RDS. One stacked, so we build our own scripts and publish them in the stack.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Amazon RDS is a little costly, but it also reduces the number of full-time employees needed. We require fewer system admins or DBS because RDS reduces our workload.
It's pay as you go. Once you are using it, you will get support. You don't need to buy a yearly license to get support. If we deployed our server there, we would get support from them.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Amazon RDS nine out of 10. I recommend it. Cost is the only issue. RDS is one of the best choices if you need scalability and reliability, but you're not worried about the cost.
Some of the features will not be there. For example, some on-premises things we want to set up will not be supported there. There are some challenges there that they are fixing.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Enterprise Solutions Architect at OORWIN LABS INC
A good product that is easy to deploy, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "It is stable, scalable, and easy to deploy."
- "It's very useful to save customer's data in a secure manner, we can easily handle all the customer records with encryption mode."
- "Currently, we are using Fargate. Instead of that, we are planning to use EC2 instances, but we are facing some problems, and we are unable to enable NAT gateway for Elastic Load Balancer. When we enable auto-scaling, the instance count increases, and we get IP addresses dynamically. We need to whitelist the IPs of these instances, but there is no option to whitelist those IPs in Amazon RDS. We need one static IP that we can assign to ELB so that we can whitelist this IP."
- "When we depend on the AWS technical team, we need to pay more. For tech support, they are charging about 25% of the actual bill, which is too high for me."
What is our primary use case?
It's very useful to save customer's data in a secure manner, we can easily handle all the customer records with encryption mode.
How has it helped my organization?
Currently, we are not using RDS as, it has some limitations on DB schema creation, it allows limited tenant DB creations...expecting to release RDS custom RDS very soon
What is most valuable?
It is stable, scalable, and easy to deploy.
What needs improvement?
Expecting to have AWS RDS custom.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for almost four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. We have more than 12,000 users who are using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
When we depend on the AWS technical team, we need to pay more. For tech support, they are charging about 25% of the actual bill, which is too high for me. If it is fixed to something like $200, I can go for that, but currently, it is too high for me.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Earlier we used Rackspace, it is very costly and more technical depedancy
How was the initial setup?
It is straightforward. It takes only a couple of minutes.
What about the implementation team?
We did it on our own.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Cost always depends on usage
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated azure, but we faced some issues with wild card domains
What other advice do I have?
The product is pretty good, but its support is very expensive.
I would rate it a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: August 2026
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