No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud Spanner comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 (10th)
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 September 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 12.8%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 7.2%, up from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon RDS12.8%
Google Cloud Spanner7.2%
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

"I use Amazon RDS to store and manage data securely. It helps me retrieve information and gain insights from the data that comes in for my business or specific applications."
"One of the most valuable features is that it is serverless, so we don't have to worry about scaling."
"The Amazon RDS features I found most valuable are snapshots and automatic backups."
"RDS MySQL (and Postgres) are great managed database services."
"The solution is scalable and can be configured with AWS Secrets Manager."
"Amazon RDS fulfills PCI requirements, which is a valuable feature for us."
"The tool is very easy to use and configure."
"Amazon RDS is easy to maintain and easy to deploy."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"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."
"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."
 

Cons

"Currently, speaking of Microsoft SQL on RDS, you don't have a full option to be able to use it directly on RDS. So, it needs improvement."
"In the next release, it would be great to have access to core parameters to improve or tweak the performance."
"As a customer of Amazon RDS, you don't have super-user privileges, and that is the only drawback where improvements are required."
"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."
"The solution could improve by adding a sandbox environment and more security."
"Amazon RDS could improve by having more sophisticated. I use other solutions that have better technology for more difficult tasks."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"A lot of the features are disabled by default. The solution should enable more features. I understand this could cause challenges to management for many clients using RDS, however."
"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."
"The cost can be a bit high."
"I want to improve the deployment of cameras and surveillance infrastructure."
"The tool lacks to offer AI features."
"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."
 

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's price is good."
"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."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"The solution is expensive."
"I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The cost of using this solution is similar to that of having your own data center."
"Amazon RDS could improve by reducing the price."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database as a Service (DBaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
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.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.