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Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) Reviews & Product Details

Value at a Glance

Averages based on real user reviews.

Time to Implement

2 months

Return on Investment

14 months

User Insights

Average based on 908 real user reviews.

Implementation Time

2 months

Perceived Cost

$$$$$
Atharva P.
AP
Atharva P.
Cloud BI Engineer
Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
"Streamlined Database Management with Amazon RDS"
4/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

What I like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is that it simplifies database management by handling backups, batching, scaling, high availability, and automation. It reduces a lot of operational overhead compared to managing databases manually. Automated monitoring, patching, and failover improve reliability and reduce manual maintenance effort. Automated backups simplify recovery and retention. Deployments across multiple availability zones improve availability and reliability. Performance insights enhance query monitoring and optimization, while read replicas improve support for scaling and analytic workloads. Basic setup is straightforward. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

VAS can increase as workload scales, especially for high-performance instances and storage. I've also found out that certain low-level database optimization and customization are limited compared to self-managed databases. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sahil Y.
SY
Sahil Y.
Cloud Engineer | Cloud Solutions Architect
Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
"Effortless Database Management with AWS RDS"
4.5/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

I like that Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) handles the management of the database infrastructure, which gives me and my team more time to focus on the actual data. The high availability and advanced security features are impressive, making the service more reliable. I find the variety of database engines provided by AWS at one place very convenient, as it simplifies our operations. The AWS-managed databases take over the tedious task of manual database handling, and they provide a fast, reliable, and secure database environment that's critical for us. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

In terms of RDS, the block storage is something that can be a problem sometimes as the block has a fixed storage limit which can be critical at the time of storage migration or critical operations. Also, for a beginner, the initial setup can be a bit tedious. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

MS
mani s.
data engineer
Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
"Reliable AWS Services for Scalable Data Engineering Workflows"
5/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

The best thing I like about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is that it simplifies database management and handles production workloads very well. We don’t need to worry about backups and patching because it takes care of that. It also supports multiple database engines like MySQL, which is the best. we mainly use because it scales very well based on work loads Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

I don’t have any major dislikes about Amazon Relational Database Service. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Computer Software
CC
Verified User in Computer Software
Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
"RDS : Fully Managed, Highly Availaible, Scalable, Secure database platform"
4.5/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

RDS has helped ease database management at scale for us. Multi-AZ deployments handle failover seamlessly aiding, Automated backups and point-in-time recovery without any manual effort has helped us with improved availability and disaster recovery. Resizing and Read replicas for our read-heavy workloads has helped with scaling. Performance Insights has impovement observability with spotting of slow queries and bottlenecks. Patching and maintenance has been smooth. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

Managed services have higher cost. Also, lack of root access make it difficult to install certain extensions or adjust OS level parameters. Major engine versions upgrates has not be seamless for us. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

varma k.
VK
varma k.
F
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
"Amazon RDS Makes Database Management Effortless with Reliable Automation"
5/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

The best thing about Amazon RDS is how it eliminates manual database management. It automatically handles backups, software patching, scaling, and high availability setups up letting you focus on application development instead of infrastructure maintenance. Features like Multi-AZ deployment, read replicas, and point-in-time recovery enhance reliability and performance with minimal effort. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

Customization is limited, and there’s no root access. On top of that, the costs can feel unpredictable. I’ve also run into vendor lock-in, downtime during scaling, and limited control over replication, which makes it harder to manage things the way I want. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Prasanth K.
PK
Prasanth K.
Enterprise Architect | Cloud Transformation Leader | Driving Multi-Cloud Strategy, Solutions | DevSecOps Excellence | Innovation Resilient Infrastructure at Scale
Information Technology and Services
Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
"Effortless Migration, Resilience and Great Cost Benefits with RDS"
4/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

- Broke a massive Oracle 11g/12c backed monolith application into 25 microservice‑aligned schemas and migrated everything to Oracle 19c on RDS, giving each service its own performance and scaling boundary.

- What I like most about RDS is that we no longer need to spend a lot of time on manual heavy lifting — patching, automated backups, point-in-time restores (to the second), and even provisioning. Tasks like these used to take weeks, involve multiple meetings, and require approval cycles, but are now fully automated and happen in the background with just a simple configuration.

- The recovery and failover challenges we previously faced with our monolith have been completely eliminated. By leveraging Amazon RDS’s automated, synchronous replication and Multi-AZ failover capabilities, we’ve gained a level of resilience that promises our application stays online even during a full Availability Zone outage. With 99.95% uptime, we are far more than just resilient (In a worst-case failover scenario, the transition happens in roughly 2 minutes, which is well within our acceptable RTO).

- Managing 25 microservices and their rapidly expanding data sets doesn't seem to be a challenge to us, and our operations have been simplified with its configuration-based implementation. With RDS, we have the option to seamlessly scale storage, upgrade instance types, and leverage read replicas to offload traffic. This flexibility has been a cornerstone of our migration journey, delivering significant cost savings and operational efficiency.

- We have the option to stop RDS instances of lower environments during weekends or when not in use, saving additional costs.

- AWS, as usual, has top-notch customer support for RDS. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

- Moving from on-prem to RDS broke our deep New Relic integration; because we no longer have OS-level access to install custom agents, we lost the ability to perform granular, table-level monitoring that we relied on for legacy performance tuning.

- We observed that DB gets stuck in the Upgrading/Modifying state during modifications and we really don't have any way to check the actual issue other than just waiting. Sometimes, we are left with just to restart the same, which is quite tedious at times. This really needs some focus from AWS; we, users, need visibility on the progress.

- SYSDBA permissions are restricted, but that's not a blocker. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Liam S.
LS
Liam S.
Senior Security Engineer
Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
"Stable, High-Performing AWS RDS with Useful Query Logs and Insights"
5/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

AWS RDS offers both PostgreSQL and their tweaked version, Aurora. It is stable and performs well. The query logs and insights are useful to managing the database. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

Not much to dislike; the gaps, like query analysers, are available for free. PostgreSQL has a pretty great ecosystem and documentation that surrounds it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Nancy G.
NG
Nancy G.
server administrator
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
"Reliable and Hassle-Free Managed Database Service"
5/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

Its fully managed nature—handling backups, scaling, patching, and high availability automatically—so you can focus on building applications instead of managing databases. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

Limited low-level control compared to self-managed databases, especially for advanced tuning and customization. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Abhik S.
AS
Abhik S.
Software Engineer
Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
"A solid Database-as-a-Service option"
4.5/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

Well, RDS is a must as per me if your project is in AWS and you are working on relational databases, Few things I personally liked about Amazon RDS are that most of the operations like patching, backups, scalings etc are automatic so a lot of less effort needed from the operations side, and I don't think any other RDS works as good as Amazon RDS works with AWS. I also found all the operations being performed very smoothly, and I personally never faced any failures while using this, so definitely quite robust too. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

There are a few downside too here, first the cost of using this I feel is too high, initially the cost might seem normal but as your application scales cost increases a lot. Also I felt there is very less control over the database server which didn't let me customize a few things I wanted to. Also If a few more monitoring tools can definitely help the user to troubleshoot. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Happy M.
HM
Happy M.
Software Engineer
Information Technology and Services
Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
"Reliable managed database with automated backups"
3.5/5
What do you like best about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

I like the automated backups and patching. It takes care of routine database maintenance, which saves a lot of time and reduces the risk of errors. The multi-AZ replication feature is also great for ensuring uptime. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)?

Scaling can be a bit tricky for very large workloads, and cost can grow if you need high availability across regions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Questions about Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)? Ask real users or explore answers from the community

Get practical answers, real workflows, and honest pros and cons from the G2 community or share your insights.

Shruti N.
SN
Shruti Nair
•
Last activity 5 months ago

Ideal relational database for fast-growing businesses

GU
Guest User
•
Last activity 7 months ago

What is Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) used for?

2 Upvotes
2
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Pricing Insights

Averages based on real user reviews.

Time to Implement

2 months

Return on Investment

14 months

Average Discount

11%

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) Comparisons
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) Features
Storage
Availability
Stability
Access Control
Encryption
Authentication
Data Types
Languages
Operating Systems
Workload Management