We performed a comparison between Amazon RDS and SQL Azure based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, SQL Azure nudges slightly ahead of Amazon RDS. SQL Azure is part of the Microsoft Azure ecosystem and offers huge benefits to Microsoft / Microsoft Azure, users which represents tremendous cost savings, great security, and seamless integrations with most Microsoft products.
"It is very easy to set up initially."
"I use Amazon RDS to store and manage data securely. It helps me retrieve information and gain insights from the data that comes in for my business or specific applications."
"Amazon RDS is lightweight and flexible."
"The solution's customer service is excellent."
"The most valuable features of Amazon RDS are its scalability, reliability, and intelligence."
"Amazon RDS handles database backup mechanisms and patch management."
"Amazon RDS is quite a well-managed and stable service...The initial setup was very easy."
"The solution is scalable and can be configured with AWS Secrets Manager."
"SQL Azure is reliable and scales well."
"I am very happy with this solution; right now, I don't think there is anything I would change."
"It's easy to use and maintain. If we look at the development of the maintenance team, we are not directly responsible for any infrastructure issues. We have too many positive sides to that. No maintenance, easy to use, and we'll know the limits very well."
"The most valuable feature is PolyBase."
"SQL is a simpler database. We use it more than other databases."
"The most valuable feature from the infra point of view is you don't have to keep any on-prem infrastructure, it is available all the time whenever you want to access it."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It took less than one day for deployment."
"Emergency mode is quite useful."
"It would be better if it integrated seamlessly with Microsoft products. Our clients use the Microsoft Tally application server. We already tried to create a reputation from, for example, an on-premises environment from our client to Amazon RDS using Microsoft Tally server, and we couldn't do that because we didn't have a strong user in RDS. We couldn't create a reputation from an on-premises environment from the Microsoft Tally server to RDS. I think that it would be a good implementation, and it would help us with this case."
"They should add a feature for manual SQL patching in RDS."
"In the next release, it would be great to have access to core parameters to improve or tweak the performance."
"With my limited experience, I have noticed that documentation management could be improved. It could be better."
"I also don't think it's very scalable."
"Sometimes the interface has many moving parts, which is a concern."
"The support team of Amazon RDS provides us with some links to go through whenever we face some issues, but it doesn't work for us."
"I like using Amazon RDS because it offers quick operations for me. However, there are times when understanding how to use some of the services can be challenging, even with documentation. If I could add a feature, I'd improve navigation for related services."
"From a security perspective, although their features are decent, they can always be improved upon, updated, and refined to help protect clients better."
"Support isn't that great. They need to work on this aspect of their service. It can be challenging to reach them."
"Operational cost needs improvement."
"There is room for improvement regarding the pricing structure."
"One of the nice features in Microsoft SQL Server is the SQL Server CLR, which we sometimes need to use to protect our procedures using C# or CLR. This is not available in the SQL Azure database."
"The problem is the automated configuration."
"I need something which is in one place so I can automate the Azure data factory, but it's a different tool. It's not easy and in one place, so I can't switch to the other tool and do something there, automate everything there in the on-prem infrastructure, and then have everything in the agent. I can just pick one packet and use it. However, I want to be able to click it and run it."
"SQL Azure could improve the feature set. They are catching up to Microsoft SQL Server."
Amazon RDS is ranked 1st in Database as a Service with 45 reviews while SQL Azure is ranked 2nd in Database as a Service with 90 reviews. Amazon RDS is rated 8.4, while SQL Azure is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Amazon RDS writes "Provides excellent authentication, authorization, integration, data protection, and autoscaling features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SQL Azure writes "The SQL connector effectively syncs data to databases". Amazon RDS is most compared with MongoDB Atlas, Google Cloud SQL, Oracle Database as a Service, Google Cloud Spanner and Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer, whereas SQL Azure is most compared with Google Cloud SQL, MongoDB Atlas, Oracle Database as a Service, Google Cloud Spanner and IBM Db2 on Cloud. See our Amazon RDS vs. SQL Azure report.
See our list of best Database as a Service vendors.
We monitor all Database as a Service reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
