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AWS Database Migration Service vs Elastic Search comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 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
4.5
Organizations save up to $150,000 annually using AWS Database Migration Service, offering significant cost savings over legacy tools.
Sentiment score
3.8
Organizations using Elastic Search reported improved efficiency, faster performance, cost savings, and enhanced data management, emphasizing positive outcomes.
I can specify savings of around 40 to 60%.
Delivery Head Data Engineering at BAGIC
We have not purchased any licensed products, and our use of Elastic Search is purely open-source, contributing positively to our ROI.
Software Engineer at Government of India
It is stable, and we do not encounter critical issues like server downtime, which could result in data loss.
SOC A2 at Innodata-ISOGEN
The main benefits observed from using Elastic Search include improvements in operational efficiency, along with cost, time, and resource savings.
Senior Devops Engineer at Ubique Digital LTD
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.3
AWS Database Migration Service support is inconsistent, with helpful expertise but often involves delays, budget considerations, or repeated exchanges.
Sentiment score
6.3
Elastic Search customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some users note occasional slow responses.
When working with AWS GovCloud, we often did not get an answer in time because AWS seemed more focused on the commercial side.
Owner at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I am happy with the technical support from AWS.
Delivery Head Data Engineering at BAGIC
For P1 tickets, they provide very immediate quick responses and join calls to support and troubleshoot the issue accordingly.
Elastic Engineer at The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
The customer support for Elastic Search is one of the best I have ever tried.
Software Developer at a media company with 10,001+ employees
They have always been really responsible and responsive to my requests.
Security Lead at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
AWS Database Migration Service is scalable and adaptable, but may face compatibility and latency issues with large data sets.
Sentiment score
7.2
Elastic Search is scalable and reliable for high-volume tasks, though some users face challenges with cost and complex data handling.
Even if there was a failure, we could catch it and rerun it.
Software architect at Cognizant
AWS's scalable nature involves a human approach, meaning it is not auto-scalable.
Lead Architect at Fracral
While scalability is good, latency exists due to our business nature.
Delivery Head Data Engineering at BAGIC
We can search through that document quite easily, sometimes in 7 milliseconds, sometimes one or two milliseconds.
Product Engineer at A3L
Performance tests involving one million requests at once, we encountered issues with shards and nodes not upscaling as needed, leading to crashes and minimal data loss.
Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would rate its scalability a ten.
Backend Developer
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
AWS Database Migration Service is reliable and stable, with occasional manual interventions needed for large data volumes or constant migrations.
Sentiment score
7.7
Elastic Search is reliable, especially under one terabyte, with occasional issues and challenges from frequent updates.
For DMS version upgrades, we schedule downtime during business hours so that midnight workloads are not interrupted and morning business can run smoothly.
Delivery Head Data Engineering at BAGIC
The data transfer sometimes exceeded the bandwidth limits without proper notification, which caused issues.
SOC A2 at Innodata-ISOGEN
The stability of Elasticsearch was very high.
Backend Developer
When you put one keyword, everything related to that keyword in your ecosystem will showcase all the results.
Chief Information Security Officer at CDSL Ventures Limited
 

Room For Improvement

AWS Database Migration Service needs improved functionality, compatibility, monitoring, and documentation to enhance user experience and platform support.
Users criticize Elastic Search for mapping conflicts, complex setup, high costs, and desire improved AI integration and better documentation.
DMS works within AWS ecosystem, but they also have to look for third party solutions. Now Snowflake is a bigger player, or Databricks.
Delivery Head Data Engineering at BAGIC
Sometimes, those who implement the service face problems and resolve it, but I may not even know what problems they faced.
Owner at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
From a technical point of view, there are no significant issues recalled as Elastic Search has been absolutely awesome for this use case and covers 100% of the needs.
Principal Scientific Computing Software Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
If I need to parse one million records saved into Elastic Search, it becomes a nightmare because I need to do the pagination, and it is very problematic in that regard.
Lead Engineer at Spidersilk
Observability features like search latency, indexing rate, and maybe rejected requests should be added to make the platform more reliable and accessible for everyone.
Senior System Engineer at EPAM Systems
 

Setup Cost

AWS Database Migration Service is cost-effective long-term, with pricing varying by usage, migration complexity, and regional differences.
Elastic Search offers enterprise pricing based on nodes, with costs varying by features, support, and deployment options.
On the AWS side, it is very expensive because they charge based on query basis or how much data is transferred in and out, making it very expensive.
Lead Engineer at Spidersilk
Having the hosted solution and not having to pay for essentially a DevOps person on staff to manage makes it affordable.
CTO at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
You can host it on-premises, which would incur zero cost, or take it as a SaaS-based service, where the expenses remain minimal.
Senior Software Engineer at Agoda
 

Valuable Features

AWS Database Migration Service offers scalable, cost-effective migration with easy administration, real-time synchronization, and high data security.
Elastic Search enhances data handling with advanced search features, scalability, AI integrations, and powerful visualization via Kibana.
AWS offers a way to build jobs that are scalable, expandable for new and current tables, and can be deployed quickly.
Lead Architect at Fracral
You can copy the database at first without impacting your current database, and then use CDC to copy incremental changes.
Owner at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The scalability option is another valuable feature because AWS provides its own compute behind it, so I can scale up and scale down at any given point.
Delivery Head Data Engineering at BAGIC
Elastic Search makes handling large data volumes efficient and supports complex search operations.
Software Engineer at Government of India
The most valuable feature of Elasticsearch was the quick search capability, allowing us to search by any criteria needed.
Backend Developer
The speed with which Elastic Search is able to search through all of the documents we place into it is quite remarkable, as we search through 65 billion documents in less than a second in most cases, on a constant consistent basis.
Director, Software Engineering at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Database Migration Service
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Elastic Search
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Indexing and Search (1st), Search as a Service (1st), Vector Databases (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Data Integration category, the mindshare of AWS Database Migration Service is 6.4%, down from 14.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Search is 1.7%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS Database Migration Service6.4%
Elastic Search1.7%
Other91.9%
Cloud Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

AG
Delivery Head Data Engineering at BAGIC
Streamlines data migration across platforms with cost-effective and scalable solutions
We have the continuous data integration feature, but it does not work very well in our given ecosystem because we have huge data volume, and it reads from archive log rather than the redo sequence. That is where it lacks, so we are not able to do continuous streaming data injection. The ability to handle heterogeneous migrations for our organization is adequate. I do not see a major value add, or see it as a marquee feature. It is a good tool, but we do not have that sort of uses requirement. In my 10 plus years of experience, I do not see that kind of requirement where I have to replicate it in real time. I leverage AWS CloudWatch for addressing migration issues. The major challenges come across CDC. We have created latency filter and everything, but there is no way to control it. Due to the nature of our business, the transactions increase during month end and year end. My transactions are supposed to increase, my workloads on my core system increases, but my DMS is not able to keep up with them, even if I increase it to a higher side. Improvements could be made in AWS Database Migration Service. Because of that, I am moving out of DMS now to a STRIIM solution. DMS works within AWS ecosystem, but they also have to look for third party solutions. Now Snowflake is a bigger player, or Databricks. Something that could be possible as a connector, whether paid or free, but giving as a connector to that ecosystem as well.
reviewer2817942 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Logging and vector search have transformed observability and empowered reliable ai agents
Elastic Search is not specifically being used for certain purposes. I deploy Elastic Search database on the cloud and use cloud services so that nobody can attack. However, I do not use Elastic Search to resolve attack issues. The basic main purpose of Elastic Search, as of now, I feel it can do more in the AI area. Sometime I saw that when I am developing RAG and have to generate the embeddings, which I call metadata, sometimes it tries to fail. That durability or issue handling should be improved, but apart from that, I did not find anything as of now. As per my use case, whatever I am using seems pretty good. Apart from that, some definitely improvement will be there. One improvement is that it should be faster. Whenever I am searching any logs, it takes much time. For example, if I open my log in Notepad or a similar tool, I can search the text within a second. With Elastic Search, it takes a little bit of time, ten to fifteen seconds. That can be improved. Sometimes, engineers take time to assign when I create a ticket.
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894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise47
 

Questions from the Community

What resources can you use to learn how to utilize AWS Database Migration Service?
As with all AWS products, you are given very useful documentation with AWS Database Migration Service. Before we started using this product, we went over it and we were able to learn the basics an...
Would you recommend AWS Database Migration Service as a cloud data integration tool?
My current company started using AWS Database Migration Service upon my recommendation, and I continue telling people how good of a product it is. However, users should keep in mind a few things. ...
Is AWS Database Migration Service an affordable solution?
Compared to similar solutions, AWS Database Migration Service falls somewhere in the middle price-wise, at least from my experience. This being said, it is not a very affordable solution, especial...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ELK Elasticsearch?
When it comes to pricing, I think we had to pay AWS approximately 1,000 to 1,200 per month for the overall stack. I am not quite certain about how much Elastic Search costs specifically because I w...
What needs improvement with ELK Elasticsearch?
Elastic Search has many features, including Kibana and Logstash, which we regularly use. However, one downside in our product is cost, as it can be expensive when maintaining multiple shards and in...
What is your primary use case for ELK Elasticsearch?
As a developer, I use Elastic Search in developing one of my applications, basically integrating the back-end with Elastic Search. Our main use case for Elastic Search is for Logstash, which is a s...
 

Also Known As

AWS Data Migration Service
Elastic Enterprise Search, Swiftype, Elastic Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Veoci, Trimble, Nasdaq, shaadi.com, Hotelbeds, SysAid, Verizon, Expedia, Pega
T-Mobile, Adobe, Booking.com, BMW, Telegraph Media Group, Cisco, Karbon, Deezer, NORBr, Labelbox, Fingerprint, Relativity, NHS Hospital, Met Office, Proximus, Go1, Mentat, Bluestone Analytics, Humanz, Hutch, Auchan, Sitecore, Linklaters, Socren, Infotrack, Pfizer, Engadget, Airbus, Grab, Vimeo, Ticketmaster, Asana, Twilio, Blizzard, Comcast, RWE and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Database Migration Service vs. Elastic Search and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.