The closest alternatives to Amazon RDS on Lister are Oracle Database, PostgreSQL and MySQL, the companies that share the most rankings with it. Each is compared below on its stated best fit, starting price and Lister Score.
Amazon RDS alternatives, compared| # | ALTERNATIVE | BEST FOR | SCORE | FROM | RANKED |
|---|
| 1 |  Oracle DatabaseEnterprise-grade relational database with advanced security and performance | Large enterprises, financial institutions, and organisations requiring mission-critical database reliability and advanced features | 95.0 | Custom | #1 in Top 10 Database Management SystemsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 2 |  PostgreSQLThe world's most advanced open-source relational database | Developers, startups, enterprises seeking open-source solutions with advanced features and no licensing costs | 95.0 | Free | #1 in Top 10 Database Management ToolsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 3 |  MySQLThe most popular open-source relational database | Web applications, content management systems, startups, and businesses seeking simplicity and compatibility | 92.7 | Free | #2 in Top 10 Database Management ToolsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 4 |  Microsoft SQL ServerPowerful relational database platform deeply integrated with Windows and Azure | Enterprises with Microsoft technology stacks, organisations requiring tight Windows integration, and businesses leveraging Azure cloud | 90.3 | £3,717 per core annually | #3 in Top 10 Database Management SystemsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 5 |  MongoDBLeading NoSQL document database for flexible, scalable applications | Modern web applications, mobile apps, content management systems, and projects requiring flexible schema evolution | 85.7 | Free | #5 in Top 10 Database Management SystemsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 6 |  CassandraDistributed NoSQL database for high-availability and extreme scalability | Large-scale distributed systems, time-series data, organisations requiring extreme availability and handling massive data volumes | 81.0 | Free | #7 in Top 10 Database Management SystemsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 7 |  Elasticsearch | Self-hosted and custom analytics setups | 78.7 | 95.00 USD per month | #8 in Top 10 Database Management ToolsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 8 |  RedisIn-memory data store for caching, sessions, and real-time applications | Caching layers, session storage, real-time leaderboards, pub-sub messaging, and applications requiring microsecond latency | 78.7 | Free | #8 in Top 10 Database Management SystemsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 9 |  MariaDBMySQL-compatible open-source relational database with additional features | Organisations seeking MySQL compatibility with enhanced features, cost-conscious enterprises, and businesses running legacy MySQL applications | 74.0 | Free | #10 in Top 10 Database Management SystemsOn 2 of Amazon RDS's rankings |
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| 10 | MongoDB AtlasThe developer data platform | Document databases and flexible schemas | 92.7 | Free tier available | #2 in Top 10 Database Management Platforms |
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How to choose an alternative to Amazon RDS
Start from what you need it for. Where each fits best, as Lister records it:
- Oracle Database: Large enterprises, financial institutions, and organisations requiring mission-critical database reliability and advanced features
- PostgreSQL: Developers, startups, enterprises seeking open-source solutions with advanced features and no licensing costs
- MySQL: Web applications, content management systems, startups, and businesses seeking simplicity and compatibility
- Microsoft SQL Server: Enterprises with Microsoft technology stacks, organisations requiring tight Windows integration, and businesses leveraging Azure cloud
- MongoDB: Modern web applications, mobile apps, content management systems, and projects requiring flexible schema evolution
- Cassandra: Large-scale distributed systems, time-series data, organisations requiring extreme availability and handling massive data volumes
- Elasticsearch: Self-hosted and custom analytics setups
- Redis: Caching layers, session storage, real-time leaderboards, pub-sub messaging, and applications requiring microsecond latency
- MariaDB: Organisations seeking MySQL compatibility with enhanced features, cost-conscious enterprises, and businesses running legacy MySQL applications
- MongoDB Atlas: Document databases and flexible schemas
Closest to Amazon RDS by the rankings they share: Oracle Database (2 rankings), PostgreSQL (2 rankings) and MySQL (2 rankings).
Free to start, by their stated pricing: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, MariaDB and MongoDB Atlas.
Stated starting prices: Microsoft SQL Server (£3,717 per core annually) and Elasticsearch (95.00 USD per month).
Custom or quote-based pricing: Oracle Database.
Each Lister Score is the alternative's score on the ranking named in its row, so compare scores within one ranking rather than across rankings. How the score is made.
Each alternative in brief
01
Enterprise-grade relational database with advanced security and performance
#1 in Top 10 Database Management Systems: Oracle Database is a comprehensive relational database management system widely used by large enterprises for complex transactional and analytical workloads. It offers advanced features including partitioning, compression, and extensive security capabilities.
PROS- Unmatched security features and compliance certifications for regulated industries
- Superior performance optimisation and partitioning capabilities for massive datasets
CONS- Extremely expensive licensing model with high total cost of ownership
- Complex to install, configure, and maintain, requiring specialist expertise
95.0
02
The world's most advanced open-source relational database
#1 in Top 10 Database Management Tools: PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source object-relational database system known for reliability, data integrity, and comprehensive feature set including advanced indexing, full-text search, and JSON support.
PROS- Completely free and open-source with strong community support
- Highly extensible with custom data types, operators, and procedural languages
CONS- Steeper learning curve compared to simpler databases like MySQL
- Performance tuning requires significant expertise for very large datasets
95.0
03
The most popular open-source relational database
#2 in Top 10 Database Management Tools: MySQL is a straightforward, fast, and reliable open-source relational database widely used in web applications, content management systems, and cloud platforms.
PROS- Easy to install, configure, and use with excellent documentation
- Outstanding performance for read-heavy operations and web applications
CONS- Limited support for complex queries and stored procedures compared to PostgreSQL
- Traditionally lacked advanced features though InnoDB has improved significantly
92.7
04
Powerful relational database platform deeply integrated with Windows and Azure
#3 in Top 10 Database Management Systems: Microsoft SQL Server provides a comprehensive database platform tightly integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem, offering strong analytics, reporting, and business intelligence capabilities alongside traditional transactional processing.
PROS- Seamless integration with Windows Server, Active Directory, and Microsoft cloud services
- Excellent business intelligence and analytics features through built-in SQL Server Analysis Services
CONS- Licensing costs are substantially higher than open-source alternatives
- Less flexibility when deployed outside Microsoft technology environments
90.3
05
Leading NoSQL document database for flexible, scalable applications
#5 in Top 10 Database Management Systems: MongoDB is a popular NoSQL document database that stores data in flexible JSON-like documents. It excels at handling unstructured data, rapid iteration, and horizontal scaling for applications with varying data structures.
PROS- Flexible document model enables rapid development and schema evolution without migrations
- Horizontal scalability through automatic sharding and replica sets for high availability
CONS- Less suitable for complex transactions spanning multiple documents
- Can consume more storage space than relational databases due to document structure redundancy
85.7
06
Distributed NoSQL database for high-availability and extreme scalability
#7 in Top 10 Database Management Systems: Apache Cassandra is a highly distributed NoSQL database designed for massive scale, high availability, and fault tolerance across geographically distributed data centres. It excels at handling time-series data and large analytical workloads.
PROS- Exceptional horizontal scalability with linear performance improvement as nodes are added
- Masterless replication ensures no single point of failure and true distributed architecture
CONS- Complex operational requirements and steep learning curve for deployment and tuning
- Eventually consistent model makes it unsuitable for applications requiring strong consistency
81.0
07
#8 in Top 10 Database Management Tools: Elasticsearch is a powerful search and analytics engine built on Lucene, offering full-text search, real-time analytics, and visualisation capabilities with distributed architecture.
PROS- Highly customisable with powerful search features
- Strong community support and extensive documentation
CONS- Requires significant operational overhead to maintain clusters
78.7
08
In-memory data store for caching, sessions, and real-time applications
#8 in Top 10 Database Management Systems: Redis is an open-source in-memory data structure store used primarily for caching, sessions, and real-time analytics. It offers exceptional speed for read and write operations through its memory-based architecture.
PROS- Extraordinary performance with in-memory storage enabling microsecond latency responses
- Supports diverse data structures and built-in operations optimised for common use cases
CONS- Data limited by available RAM, making it unsuitable as a primary persistent database
- Requires careful memory management and eviction policies to prevent data loss
78.7
09
MySQL-compatible open-source relational database with additional features
#10 in Top 10 Database Management Systems: MariaDB is an open-source relational database that maintains MySQL compatibility whilst offering additional features, optimisations, and security enhancements. It provides a drop-in replacement for MySQL with improved performance.
PROS- Fully MySQL compatible, enabling seamless migration from MySQL with no application changes
- Additional storage engines like Aria and ColumnStore provide improved performance for specific workloads
CONS- Smaller community compared to MySQL despite being feature-rich and reliable
- Some advanced features introduce complexity that may not be necessary for simpler applications
74.0
10
The developer data platform
#2 in Top 10 Database Management Platforms: The fully managed cloud database for modern applications, built by the creators of MongoDB.
PROS- Flexible JSON-like document model
- Strong multi-cloud data distribution
CONS- Complex queries can be memory intensive
- Advanced features require costly tiers
92.7