Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud SQL 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 #4 with an average rating of 7.9. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 22.2% mindshare in DS, compared to Google’s 13.2% 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 56 Amazon RDS reviews

3,747 Views
3,710 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Google Cloud SQL

Read 22 Google Cloud SQL reviews

2,275 Views
2,275 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 118 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

3,353 Views
3,319 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Amazon RDS

Google Cloud SQL

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL, 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: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

August 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:

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 22.2%, down from 26.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud SQL is 13.2%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 14.7%, down from 18.1% 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.

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Prathap Sankar

Analytics Delivery Manager at Tredence Inc.

Gain control and flexibility with customizable tools but has slower performance

I am majorly working in Google Cloud SQL for building my applications Google Cloud SQL provides complete customization options, along with a dashboarding tool and a comprehensive suite of tools that can be used to customize and build any application needed. The deployment model allows for…

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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

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

"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."

"Amazon RDS is quite a well-managed and stable service...The initial setup was very easy."

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

"The solution's customer service is excellent."

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

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

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

More Amazon RDS pros

"The most valuable feature for us is the Postgres on Google Cloud SQL since it supports most of the features we need."

"Its most valuable feature is that it's scalable. I can start off with a base of a lot of data and move as much as I want and it's the same as if asked to do a lot of infrastructure changes."

"This is a stable solution and offers good performance."

"The product is scalable."

"Google Cloud SQL is highly scalable."

"The solution is easy to use. I am impressed with the tool's features and functionality."

"The setup was straightforward. Just a couple of clicks, and we were done."

"I found its storage and security to be the most valuable. It was a good experience. It is also very stable and scalable, and its support is perfect."

More Google Cloud SQL pros

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

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database has significantly improved our operations by allowing us to extract data and generate comprehensive reports in Power BI."

"My impression is that this solution is quite stable."

"The solution is a fairly mature product. It provides good stability."

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

"Azure Portal is most valuable."

"Database services and Active Directory related functions for this solution are good. Stable, scalable, and easy to install. Its technical support is good."

"Its easy usage is the most valuable."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

"There are a few aspects of database management that have room for improvement. There are a few parameters in the solution that are a bit unclear at our end as it's not understandable."

"There are some use cases that might come up where we would want to understand the performance aspects better."

"Amazon cannot guarantee the stability of some extensions, and there is a need for different extensions to meet PCI requirements."

"They should add a feature for manual SQL patching in RDS."

"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."

"Amazon RDS could improve by having more sophisticated. I use other solutions that have better technology for more difficult tasks."

"One of the challenges of AWS RDS is that it doesn't support performance insight. So we need to write our own script or use third-party tools."

"The product must add more older versions of the database engines."

More Amazon RDS cons

"Google's technical support is good, but they tend to never reopen a case and to send us snippets from the publicly available documentation. It's not as helpful as you would expect, not just for Google Cloud SQL but for all of Google Cloud products."

"I am yet to explore a lot of features that are present in this solution. However, it would be good if more documentation is available for this solution. This would help us in preparing for the certification exam and understand it better. Currently, we don't have much documentation. We do the labs for 20 or 25 minutes, but we can't capture and download anything."

"The overall documentation and the connectors need improvement."

"For data analysis, the AI area of the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"In the case of Google, they need to work on a more easy interface for users."

"The product's user interface could be more user-friendly to improve the overall user experience."

"The performance compared to AWS is not as fast, and the technical support could be better as they don't have a dedicated team, but mostly AI handles the support now."

"Google Cloud SQL needs to improve its support for high-end I/O operations."

More Google Cloud SQL cons

"The configuration is the area that is most cumbersome."

"There are certain shortcomings when it comes to the stability of the product, especially if I consider the fact that there can always be some bug-related issues in the tool."

"There is a need for dynamic scaling support without losing current transactions. That should be part of the standard offering to SKUs. It doesn't have Auto SQL. We have HyperSQL, but there are limitations on the Elastic Pool. It only allows 25 databases. It would help if we could automatically analyze and optimize long-running queries instead of handling these tasks manually."

"SQL Azure could improve by adding more features."

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

"The solution requires familiarity with its language so can be tricky."

"The product's pricing needs improvement."

"One area for improvement is the need for accurate cost estimates."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"Amazon RDS is cheaper compared to other tools."

"The solution is expensive."

"The price of Amazon RDS is expensive."

"In my case, MySQL is free, and if there are any costs, then it is much less than other solutions since all such things usually come bundled with the hardware."

"Amazon RDS is less expensive than other solutions."

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

More Amazon RDS pricing and cost advice

"It is not expensive, especially considering the significant reduction in database management time."

"The pricing is very much an important factor as to why we use this solution."

"From a financial perspective, Google Cloud SQL is on the cheaper side."

"The solution is affordable."

"You need to pay extra costs for backup and replication."

"It's really cheap. It wouldn't be more than, I believe it's around 50 euro per month for running a cloud SQL."

"While the platform’s pricing may be higher, it aligns with industry standards, considering the quality of service and features provided."

"We pay less than $1000 monthly in licensing fees. There are no additional costs."

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

"The pricing is actually complicated, and that is probably one downside of it. In some respects, although we can plan for the costs on a month-by-month basis, we are finding it hard to project our costings for it. Fundamentally, Microsoft is offering two pricing models, and it is challenging to understand the differences between the two. We're basically on the DTU model at the moment. That may change in the future as the size grows, but it is one of those things that we'll end up monitoring as we progress. At the moment, to get a reasonable response, generally, the price is a little high for us, but it is one of those things for which we know that we can do improvements on our code. So, it is not just the service that's the problem; it is some of the things that we need to do as well."

"It is reasonable."

"I find that they are relatively expensive, especially when compared to AWS, where the prices are notably lower."

"Microsoft services are costly, which is the only problem we face. So, pricing is an area of improvement."

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

"The price in general of Azure SQL could improve."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

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?

User interface needs improvement for using IPS and cloud watch to scale and utilize read replicas, enabling performan...

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Cloud SQL?

The implementation part of the product was easy.

See all answers

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

The cost is expensive, especially for services like BigQuery, which charge based on query operations. We pay as we us...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Cloud SQL?

Google Cloud SQL needs to improve its support for high-end I/O operations. On-prem systems with high I/O capabilities...

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 23% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 17% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Amazon RDS

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Amazon RDS

Compared 6% of the time

Yugabyte Platform vs Amazon RDS

Compared 3% of the time

More Amazon RDS Competitors

MongoDB Atlas vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 7% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 2% of the time

More Google Cloud SQL Competitors

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

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 6% of the time

vCloud Air vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 4% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS

August 2025

Download Amazon RDS product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud SQL

August 2025

Download Google Cloud SQL product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

August 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)

Google Cloud SQL is a fully-managed database service that makes it easy to set up, maintain, manage, and administer your relational PostgreSQL and MySQL databases in the cloud. Google Cloud SQL offers high performance, scalability, and convenience. Hosted on Google Cloud Platform, Cloud SQL provides a database infrastructure for applications running anywhere.

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

BeDataDriven, CodeFutures, Daffodil, GenieConnect, KiSSFLOW, LiveHive, SulAm_rica, Zync

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

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

August 2025

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