Amazon RDS vs vCloud Air comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Virtustream are both solutions in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while Virtustream is ranked #20. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 14.8% mindshare in DS, compared to Virtustream’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Virtustream users who would recommend it.

Amazon RDS

Read 58 Amazon RDS reviews

3,594 Views
3,486 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

vCloud Air

Read 3 vCloud Air reviews

592 Views
207 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon RDS

vCloud Air

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

Amazon RDS and vCloud Air are popular cloud solutions each offering unique benefits in the cloud computing market. Based on user reviews, Amazon RDS is preferred for its pricing and customer support, while vCloud Air is noted for its feature set.

Features: Amazon RDS users value its automatic backups, scalability, and customer support. vCloud Air users appreciate its integration capabilities, flexibility, and robust features for complex environments.

Room for Improvement: Users of Amazon RDS suggest enhancements in performance metrics, query processing speed, and monitoring tools. vCloud Air users point out the steep learning curve, limited documentation, and the need for better customer service resources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon RDS is recognized for its straightforward deployment and effective customer service. vCloud Air offers a flexible deployment model but has mixed reviews regarding its customer service, with some users finding it less responsive.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon RDS users report satisfaction with the setup cost and overall ROI, making it a cost-effective solution. vCloud Air is seen as premium-priced but justifiable due to the high ROI in complex operational environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Database as a Service (DBaaS) Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

January 2026

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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

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Relational Databases Tools (9th)

vCloud Air

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (22nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon RDS is 14.8%, down from 25.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCloud Air is 1.5%, up from 0.4% 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	14.8%
vCloud Air	1.5%
Other	83.7%

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2592669

Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Positive experiences with database services, with minor room for feature enhancements observed

I don't really see any disadvantages of Amazon RDS. With Oracle, I think AWS doesn't provide the RAC stability. If you have Oracle installed in your own data centers, you can set up various clusters and we can set up the RACs, but in Amazon RDS, we cannot have the RAC feature of Oracle. They could add that feature. Amazon RDS has limitations regarding RAC. If we talk about installing Oracle in RDS, we cannot have the RAC, but if you deploy Oracle on GCP, then there is probably the RAC feature available. I observed that around two or three years back, but I'm not sure whether they have added the RAC feature in AWS. Amazon RDS is expensive compared to GCP. GCP also has the same features, and although it is quite extensive and feature-rich, I see Amazon RDS as slightly expensive compared to other clouds.

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Saurabh Chandratre

Director Solutions Architect - EMEA & APAC at Blue Medora

With the VPC, you can run your workloads in an active state, use it for development work and for hosting SQL/Exchange Servers in IaaS; RaaS/DaaS for DR activities.

All three components of the vCloud Air are equally valuable and important, i.e., IaaS, DaaS and RaaS. I like the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) offering compared to the Dedicated Cloud. It gives me the flexibility to utilize the pay-as-you-go option. You can run your workloads in an active state at reasonable prices. I have seen lots of companies use it for their development work, as well as for hosting SQL and Exchange Servers, i.e., in the active-passive mode instead of Replication (RaaS). Disaster Recovery is also a great feature that is affordable and easy to use. Disaster Recovery is a great component of the vCloud Air, where you can protect the on-premises cloud infrastructure, by providing self-service recovery options using the vSphere Replication. Some of the features that really stand out and I have used in my projects are: * Direct Connect: It provides high speed and private line connectivity. * Offline Data Transfer: For encrypted bulk data transport.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

University

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	23

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon RDS?

The product's installation phase is easy.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon RDS?

The pricing for Amazon RDS is reasonable.

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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 ...

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Comparisons

MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon RDS

Compared 20% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Amazon RDS

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Amazon RDS

Compared 14% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Amazon RDS

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Amazon RDS

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon RDS Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs vCloud Air

Compared 39% of the time

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs vCloud Air

Compared 22% of the time

Cleura vs vCloud Air

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs vCloud Air

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon AWS vs vCloud Air

Compared 10% of the time

More vCloud Air Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon RDS

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

January 2026

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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)

vCloud Air is a public cloud platform built on the trusted foundation of vSphere, compatible with your on-premises data center, that includes infrastructure, disaster recovery, and various applications as service offerings. vCloud Air allows you to extend your workloads into the cloud with ease. You can migrate existing onsite virtual machines (VMs) to the public cloud or start up new application VMs directly in the cloud.

Virtustream

Sample Customers

Edmodo

Lumeta, LifeSite, Clear Tec Solutions, National Physician Services, Queens University of Charlotte, California Natural Resources Agency, Pacific Disaster Center, Seventy Seven Energy Inc., Columbia Sportswear , CSS Corp

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

January 2026

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