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

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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 872,008 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

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

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

"The product is very, very easy to use."

"It is easy to use, flexible, and powerful."

"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 handles database backup mechanisms and patch management."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."

"Based on my experience, I would rate this solution a nine out of ten."

More Amazon RDS pros

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

"It is a very scalable solution."

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

"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."

"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."

"My main use case for SQL Azure is for a self-reading application related to portfolio management. In this application, users can have portfolios designed and managed based on recommendations from their brokers. These recommendations are sent to users, and if consumed, they get executed and added to their portfolios, which can be easily maintained through mobile applications. This involves using Kafka for messaging and execution."

"The dashboard is valuable."

"Valuable features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database include its quick deployment capabilities, the ability to spin up an environment easily, and seamless integration with Microsoft products."

"Emergency mode is quite useful."

"It is very fast in replicating the data from one database to another. We do some extractions from multiple databases to a target database that we use for visualization. It has a good speed."

"I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database 10 out of 10."

"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."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

"The security features could be improved."

"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."

"The solution could improve by adding a sandbox environment and more security."

"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."

"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."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

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

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

More Amazon RDS cons

"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."

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

"The tool lacks to offer AI features."

"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."

"The cost can be a bit high."

"I need something which is in one place so I can automate the Azure data factory, but it's a different tool. It's not easy and in one place, so I can't switch to the other tool and do something there, automate everything there in the on-prem infrastructure, and then have everything in the agent. I can just pick one packet and use it. However, I want to be able to click it and run it."

"The preset configuration switches we can select on SQL Azure should be made more liberal to work on."

"The solution’s pricing needs improvement because it is too high."

"Sometimes, we encounter limitations due to our use of a government cloud environment, which differs from commercial cloud platforms."

"The product could be more competitive in terms of features, security, and scalability."

"There could be more collaboration with other tools like Data Factory and Databricks."

"The solution could improve by supporting more operating systems."

"SQL Azure could improve the feature set. They are catching up to Microsoft SQL Server."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are paying for a service license."

"The solution’s pricing could be cheaper."

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

"The solution is fairly priced."

"The solution's pricing needs improvement."

"Amazon RDS could improve by reducing the price."

"The prices for different regions are different."

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

More Amazon RDS pricing and cost advice

"Google Cloud Spanner is an expensive solution."

"It is expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap."

"It is expensive. Snowflake and PostgreSQL are cheaper than this. Google is also cheaper than Azure. Its licensing is on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is based on usage and storage."

"The licensing for this solution is based on subscription."

"You can use it for smaller instances and pay less. You can also go for the premium product with all the security, scalability, and business continuity features, but you have to pay a premium amount."

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

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

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

"I believe the licensing is more on a global scale."

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

11%

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...

See all answers

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

Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Db2 on Cloud 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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