Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud Spanner vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database 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 #8 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 19.1% mindshare in DS, compared to Google’s 5.5% 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 57 Amazon RDS reviews

3,520 Views
3,485 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Google Cloud Spanner

Read 5 Google Cloud Spanner reviews

890 Views
819 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 118 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

3,076 Views
3,045 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Amazon RDS

Google Cloud Spanner

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon RDS, Google Cloud Spanner, and Microsoft Azure SQL Database based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, MongoDB and others in Database as a Service (DBaaS).

To learn more, read our detailed Database as a Service (DBaaS) Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

September 2025

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Helped 871,688 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 19.1%, down from 25.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 5.5%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 13.0%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon RDS	19.1%
Microsoft Azure SQL Database	13.0%
Google Cloud Spanner	5.5%
Other	62.4%

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

Saurav Krishna

Data Engineering and AI Intern at .3Lines Venture Capital

A stable but expensive solution that needs to look into the horizontal scaling feature

The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling. I have been using the product for a year. Google Cloud Spanner is stable. My company has 15-20 users for the product. The tool's deployment is easy. The solution is expensive. You need to look at the data set and company requirements. I rate…

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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

"For me, RDS is a great solution. I like that Amazon RDS is a very simple solution to implement and to start using."

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

"The solution's customer service is excellent."

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

"The most valuable features of Amazon RDS are its scalability, reliability, and intelligence."

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

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

"Amazon RDS is good for backups, auto-scanning, and disaster recovery. It's also appropriate for the office server."

More Amazon RDS pros

"The application deployment in the cloud is the best feature of the infrastructure."

"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."

"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."

"It is a very scalable solution."

"We can scale the solution if we need to."

"Azure SQL connects directly to our Power Platform apps, making it easy to use."

"Azure Portal is most valuable."

"SQL Azure is good with transactional systems."

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

"Coding does not require much effort."

"I'd give Microsoft Azure SQL Database a nine out of ten."

"The integration with Azure Data Factory is seamless and straightforward, described as just a click away."

"What is really helpful about the Azure SQL is that when we have a problem with our sound queries, we can trade information about what indexes we should create on tables. It's really helpful for me and also for developers."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

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

"User interface needs improvement for using IPS and CloudWatch to scale and utilize read replicas, enabling performance insights to view query formats where the bottlenecks occur, identifying the fixes, slow queries, and missing indexes, improving the security and monitoring with alerts."

"If we do not keep track of our costs, we might face some problems."

"If Amazon RDS can be provided as a service platform, it would be beneficial for years. Instead of focusing on infrastructure, they can assist backend engineers and those with varying technical expertise in utilizing it effectively. It would be helpful if Amazon could provide a more predictable pricing strategy."

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

"The Performance Monitor they have is a little clanky, at least in regards to the UI."

"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."

"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."

More Amazon RDS cons

"The cost can be a bit high."

"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."

"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 tool lacks to offer AI features."

"I want to improve the deployment of cameras and surveillance infrastructure."

"I was using a user list for connecting a program in OTF for getting information. The connection in SQL Azure can improve by being easier because at the moment I have to use private certificates for user authentication. I had to do additional configuration to have the connections."

"The price is a little higher."

"They could improve Azure SQL by adding some of the features available on-prem, such as cross-database queries and the ability to run particular jobs. We need to migrate those to something else, like a function or logic app."

"One of the nice features in Microsoft SQL Server is the SQL Server CLR, which we sometimes need to use to protect our procedures using C# or CLR. This is not available in the SQL Azure database."

"Lack of flexibility for developers in terms of performance assistance."

"One area for improvement could be expanding the search queries using vectors or AI inside the database."

"Its price could be better. It is expensive. I am not sure if Microsoft Master Data Services is included in this. If not, Master Data Services can be integrated with Azure SQL. I have only used Master Data Services on-premises."

"The solution can be improved by reducing the cost so more users can be added."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution's price is good."

"The cost of using this solution is similar to that of having your own data center."

"We are paying for a service license."

"The solution is expensive."

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

"The platform pricing is on the higher side, but given its capabilities and ease of use, it remains competitive."

"Amazon RDS is cheaper compared to other tools."

More Amazon RDS pricing and cost advice

"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."

"Offers options for paying the license on a yearly or a monthly basis."

"In terms of the cost, SQL Azure is a pay-per-use solution, particularly because it's a cloud subscription, so you pay as much as you use it."

"We have the licensing fee, and we are also paying a third party to maintain it with an SLA. There is no infrastructure cost, but its running costs are higher than expected. There is the cost of the Azure cloud, which is pricier than expected, but it is not specific to SQL Azure. It is specific to the cloud. You expect it to be cheaper, but it is more expensive to run it."

"I recommend considering a pay-as-you-go pricing model initially."

"It is beneficial in terms of cost because you are charged per data unit instead of licensing."

"The license is based on the number of users."

"It only has a subscription-based license."

"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."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

University

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

14%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	23

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	55
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	50

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?

I don't really see any disadvantages of Amazon RDS. With Oracle, I think AWS doesn't provide the RAC stability. If yo...

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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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Cloud Spanner?

Google Cloud Spanner is stable.

See all answers

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

Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side. I am not sure if this is a rumor or if it's fake...

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 ...

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 i...

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What needs improvement with SQL Azure?

I have used the Microsoft Azure SQL Database for two years now, and I don't find it satisfactory. It's slow and expen...

See all answers

Comparisons

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

Compared 21% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon RDS

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Amazon RDS

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs Amazon RDS

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon RDS Competitors

MongoDB Atlas vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 19% of the time

SingleStore vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 10% of the time

Redis vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 5% of the time

More Google Cloud Spanner Competitors

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 23% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 7% of the time

Couchbase Capella vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS

October 2025

Download Amazon RDS product report

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

September 2025

Download Google Cloud Spanner product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

October 2025

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database product report

Also Known As

RDS

Google Spanner

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)

Cloud Spanner is the first and only relational database service that is both strongly consistent and horizontally scalable. With Cloud Spanner you enjoy all the traditional benefits of a relational database: ACID transactions, relational schemas (and schema changes without downtime), SQL queries, high performance, and high availability. But unlike any other relational database service, Cloud Spanner scales horizontally, to hundreds or thousands of servers, so it can handle the highest of transactional workloads. With automatic scaling, synchronous data replication, and node redundancy, Cloud Spanner delivers up to 99.999% (five 9s) of availability for your mission critical applications. In fact, Google’s internal Spanner service has been handling millions of queries per second from many Google services for years.

Google

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

Streak, Optiva, Mixpanel

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

September 2025

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