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Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
2.6
Organizations benefit financially from Amazon RDS's cost-effectiveness, agility, and scalability, despite varying results and AWS expense concerns.
Sentiment score
6.7
Organizations using Azure SQL Database report cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and reduced data center needs with pay-per-use models.
It is ensuring we receive what we pay for through the blend of price, performance, and features.
Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees
If you're managing your own data center, you always have to overprovision your systems and pay for storage space you're not using.
Senior AI Specialist at Nedbank
We've reduced costs by about 20 percent after two or three years.
Azure Cloud Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Amazon RDS support varies by level and location; premium is efficient, but US standard support often lacks expertise.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Azure SQL Database's customer service is effective but varies; larger accounts receive better support than smaller users.
The documentation is quite good.
Corporate Database Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The official AWS technical support for Amazon RDS is helpful, providing 24/7 assistance for all business support cases with tools such as the health dashboard and AWS trusted advisor.
AWS Architect at Virtual University
I would rate the support from AWS very high, maybe nine, but it also depends on what kind of support you have signed in your contract, whether the premium support or the standard support.
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft played a significant role, even from a training perspective, and provided resources that directed us toward the right deployment path.
Senior AI Specialist at Nedbank
Once I reach the right people, the support is incredibly knowledgeable and thorough.
CTO at 2W Technologies, INC
Microsoft provides excellent service and is always available to support us.
Sr. Principal Database at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Amazon RDS is praised for its scalability and reliability, though some express minor concerns with large dataset management.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers flexible scalability, easy workload management, seamless tier transitions, and supports user expansion with robust infrastructure.
Its automated scaling, both in storage and instances, is vital as it eliminates manual interventions.
AICE Graduate at alx_africa
The installation of Amazon RDS is quite easy and quite scalable.
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Despite being a strong feature, scalability could be improved due to the lack of full functionality in autoscaling.
VP engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Scaling the solution is incredibly simple and involves just clicking a button or dragging a slider.
Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Azure's scalability features like Elasticity are essential.
Solutions Architect at ITCON SERVICES, LLC
Microsoft Azure SQL Database is cloud-based, so it's great for scaling workloads.
System Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Amazon RDS is praised for reliability, performance, and uptime with minimal issues, especially with Multi-AZ enhancing stability.
Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Azure SQL Database is praised for reliability, excellent uptime, and improved performance, with minor latency issues reported.
Amazon RDS is very stable when deployed correctly across different zones with the right configurations.
AICE Graduate at alx_africa
It is a stable product overall, with very few issues.
VP engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Amazon RDS is quite stable, and the SLAs are sort of 99.98%.
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
We can't tell the difference between running on-prem or Azure because we no longer have those latency issues.
Senior AI Specialist at Nedbank
SQL never crashes or suddenly becomes unavailable.
Cloud Engineer at Med Tech Solutions
I would assess the reliability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database in terms of maintaining uptime and availability as being excellent with zero complaints.
Ai Team Lead at Phoenix Software
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon RDS users seek improvements in security, documentation, scalability, integration, and support, with enhanced customization and cost reduction.
Azure SQL Database needs enhanced security, scalability, clear pricing, better documentation, broader compatibility, and improved user interface and automation.
Simplifying migration for those transitioning from on-premises to cloud environments.
AICE Graduate at alx_africa
Having native Change Data Capture (CDC) support would be beneficial, allowing for seamless integration with Kafka without relying on external technologies like Debezium.
VP engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Enabling performance insights to view query formats where the bottlenecks occur, identifying the fixes, slow queries, and missing indexes.
AWS Architect at Virtual University
It would be helpful if CPU performance were not pinned to the amount of storage you're using, and we could scale different properties of the Azure SQL database independently.
Azure Cloud Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
As a customer, I believe something which has been established, stable, and rugged for a very long time also needs cost optimization.
Assistant Vice President at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I could not get an accurate quote on what my monthly costs would be based on my needs.
Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Amazon RDS pricing is usage-dependent and cost-effective, offering savings on admin costs but can be expensive compared to alternatives.
Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers flexible pricing but is perceived as moderately expensive, requiring careful budget considerations.
While Azure provides great services, long-term plans on AWS are 20% to 30% cheaper.
AWS Engineer at Neurolov.ai
I find the pricing of Amazon RDS fair, as AWS operates on a pay-for-what-you-use model.
AICE Graduate at alx_africa
I rate the price for Amazon as eight on a scale from one to ten.
Corporate Database Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Azure Hybrid Benefit reduced costs by facilitating an easy transition of on-premises databases to the cloud.
Data Platform Specialist at QS2 AG - Quality Software Solutions
Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap.
Software Architect at Dynaxti
It greatly reduces the total cost of ownership through efficient licensing depending on the client, the cost savings, and hybrid benefits.
Cloud Engineer at Med Tech Solutions
 

Valuable Features

Amazon RDS provides scalability, security, and flexibility with multi-engine support and simplified operations for diverse applications.
Microsoft Azure SQL Database provides seamless scalability, dynamic resource management, high efficiency, and cost-effective integration with Microsoft applications.
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.
AICE Graduate at alx_africa
Database management is effective in Amazon RDS because it offers automated backups, high availability, read replicas, and support from multiple database engineers, while also providing security, monitoring and metrics, scalability.
AWS Architect at Virtual University
In some cases, we are using the read replica feature, and it does improve our application performance because we do not allow any downstream system to come to the main storage or main databases and perform a query.
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
The simplicity in usability, along with improved organizational productivity where we no longer need to maintain on-premises SQL servers, is invaluable.
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
The Software as a Service model is more effective and easier to access in terms of security, as Azure provides security at the security layer, reducing the risk of breach.
Specialist Datacenter and Server at IHS Towers
Using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very easy; it's much easier than SQL on-premise because I don't have to worry about deploying infrastructure, and I can rapidly deploy via infrastructure as code.
Executive Director, Platform Architecture at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation – SMBC Group
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon RDS
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (9th)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 11.9%, down from 24.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 9.9%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database9.9%
Amazon RDS11.9%
Other78.2%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

BS
AWS Architect at Virtual University
Customer support and automated backups offer reliability while ease of deployment enhances user experience
The features of Amazon RDS that I have found most valuable include web and mobile applications, enterprise applications, data warehousing and analytics, and software as a service platforms, along with dev testing environments, disaster recoveries, and backups. The mobile app backend and development environment is also the best feature for database management for my customers. Database management is effective in Amazon RDS because it offers automated backups, high availability, read replicas, and support from multiple database engineers, while also providing security, monitoring and metrics, scalability. We are using snapshots and database migrations as well as performance optimization. The impact of Amazon RDS scalability and backup has been positive, with good vertical scaling, scale up and down, horizontal scaling, and storage scaling. The performance was good and availability helped with reducing downtime.
Thomas Sawyer - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Director, Platform Architecture at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation – SMBC Group
Automatic tuning and multi-region availability have reduced manual workloads and improved performance management
The features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I like the most are easy scaling and high availability. I appreciate those features because it's easy to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database readily available in a multi-region infrastructure. Using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very easy; it's much easier than SQL on-premise because I don't have to worry about deploying infrastructure, and I can rapidly deploy via infrastructure as code. I am using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database. We are using the new feature of data encryption in Microsoft Azure SQL Database with customer-managed keys only. The reliability and stability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database platform are rock-solid; it's as good, if not better, than what our on-premise stability has been from an uptime perspective.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon RDS?
Currently, I cannot think of any major improvements. Perhaps more platforms in terms of database engine versions would be beneficial. Right now, Amazon RDS supports MySQL and PostgreSQL, but there ...
What is your primary use case for Amazon RDS?
I am a Solutions Architect, so I design solutions for our clients. Prior to this role, I was an implementation engineer, so I also implement solutions for our customers.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SQL Azure?
I would say I am at a basic experience level with the pricing, setup costs and licensing because while I am the administrator for the service, I do not provision the services and worry about the co...
What needs improvement with SQL Azure?
I have no comments at the moment on how Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved. I have no comments on additional features that I would like to see released in the next release. I do not have ...
What is your primary use case for SQL Azure?
My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are third-party applications.
 

Also Known As

RDS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edmodo
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.