Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 24.7% mindshare in DS, compared to Microsoft’s 15.9% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Amazon RDS

Read 54 Amazon RDS reviews

4,861 Views
4,099 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 117 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

5,959 Views
2,686 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Amazon RDS

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

Amazon RDS and Microsoft Azure SQL Database are strong players in the cloud database market. Based on the comparisons, each product has distinct advantages that cater to different needs.

Features: Amazon RDS offers automated backups, ease of scalability, and high availability. Microsoft Azure SQL Database has advanced machine learning capabilities, integration with other Azure services, and built-in security features.

Room for Improvement: Amazon RDS could improve its support, reduce downtime during maintenance, and enhance its performance analytics. Microsoft Azure SQL Database needs better performance analytics, improved documentation for complex setups, and more intuitive user interfaces.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon RDS is easier to deploy and integrates well with AWS services, but its customer service receives mixed reviews. Microsoft Azure SQL Database has a straightforward deployment process and an effective support team, especially for enterprises already using Azure.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon RDS offers competitive pricing with good ROI for small and medium businesses, but costs can increase with higher usage. Microsoft Azure SQL Database is more expensive but the added features and integration justify the cost, providing good ROI for enterprises needing comprehensive solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

April 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:

Categories and Ranking

Amazon RDS

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

117

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 24.7%, down from 27.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 15.9%, down from 18.3% 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.

Read full review

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is stable, scalable, and easy to deploy."

"Amazon RDS is a scalable solution."

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

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

"The solution is scalable and can be configured with AWS Secrets Manager."

"The product's initial setup phase is totally easy."

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

"The tool is very easy to use and configure."

More Amazon RDS pros

"The product is easy to set up."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is fairly easy to use and set up for our DBA teams, who use it for various applications and tools like RabbitMQ."

"We've cut costs by around 70 percent."

"What I like the most is the processes and the easiness of deployments."

"It's the type of product that doesn't need much technical support assistance as it works seamlessly."

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

"The initial setup was straightforward. It took less than one day for deployment."

"Microsoft is at the forefront of databases, and everyone uses SQL."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

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

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

"Amazon has a policy of automatically restarting the server every seven days."

"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."

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

"AWS support is decent, but it's not as good as before. Sometimes, we get junior staff who are unable to answer our questions. It also depends on the support team you get. Support based in Europe and Australia is better than US support. For example, European support is quick to deliver the right answer. US support handles routine maintenance issues, and it's mostly junior staff who don't know the product well."

"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 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."

More Amazon RDS cons

"Service Broker should be added in Azure Cloud. Service Broker is currently available only in the on-premises version."

"In terms of improvement, making Microsoft Azure SQL Database faster would cater to big companies that require speed."

"The document storage is primarily relational, which is not ideally suited for SQL. If there were better integration with SharePoint for document handling in SQL, it would greatly benefit the organization. Moreover, the current on-premise limitations prevent direct file pulling, limiting certain capabilities."

"Azure SQL had a bit of a learning curve to start, but it was fairly simple once I understood how to develop it. I was using PowerShell to connect to it, and I've never connected to online databases through Azure using PowerShell. Scripting the PowerShell connections could be simpler. The coding is familiar, but figuring out how to use it initially can be easier."

"One area for improvement is data virtualization. Companies use different data sources, creating a separate data virtualization layer, and there are more data sources behind that layer. For example, we have different data layers for Excel, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc. Creating a data virtualization layer would help because you retain the metadata of your source data."

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

"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."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The solution's pricing needs improvement."

"The prices for different regions are different."

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

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"Amazon RDS is not a very expensive solution."

More Amazon RDS pricing and cost advice

"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 price could be slightly cheaper."

"The solution is expensive."

"The pricing is flexible and can be adapted based on our requirements but the pricing options are complex especially if we are using a VM."

"Its price can definitely be lower. It is pretty pricey."

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

"If we use a smaller or free-sized Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it is extremely cost-effective and much cheaper than on-premise enterprise licenses, which are expensive."

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

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

14%

University

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

71%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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?

One key improvement would be adding support for multi-storage paradigms, including columnar support, as seen in TiDB. The serverless support with Aurora could also be enhanced. Additionally, having...

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 cloud.

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 improve accessibility and user numbers, making it easier for users to adopt the s...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SQL Azure?

Pricing could be improved to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database ( /products/microsoft-azure-sql-database-reviews ) more accessible. A reduction in price might encourage more users and bring more pro...

See all answers

Comparisons

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

Compared 27% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon RDS

Compared 21% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 18% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Amazon RDS

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Amazon RDS

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon RDS Competitors

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 38% 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 8% of the time

vCloud Air vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 3% of the time

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS

May 2025

Download Amazon RDS product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

April 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)

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

April 2025

Free Report: Amazon RDS vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

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