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Amazon RDS vs PlanetScale
Short answer: Pick Amazon RDS if you want managed relational databases with high availability; pick PlanetScale if you want sharded MySQL/Postgres with unlimited IOPS. Amazon RDS has a free plan; PlanetScale starts at $5/month.
Which to pick
Pick Amazon RDS if you want…
- Managed relational databases with high availability
- A free plan to start with
- Integrations with AWS Outposts or Amazon RDS Proxy (on Amazon RDS's list, not PlanetScale's)
Pick PlanetScale if you want…
- Sharded MySQL/Postgres with unlimited IOPS
- Hosted MySQL/Postgres with scaling
- Integrations with Fivetran, Airbyte or Hightouch (on PlanetScale's list, not Amazon RDS's)
Side by side
- What it is
- Amazon RDS:Amazon RDS is a fully managed relational database service that simplifies setup, operation, and scaling of multiple database engines on AWS.
- PlanetScale:PlanetScale provides managed, horizontally-sharded MySQL, Vitess, and Postgres databases with unlimited IOPS and high-availability.
- Best for
- Amazon RDS:Managed relational databases with high availability
- PlanetScale:Sharded MySQL/Postgres with unlimited IOPS
- Who it’s for
- Amazon RDS:Developers and enterprises needing managed relational databases on AWS
- PlanetScale:Developers and teams needing scalable, high-performance cloud databases.
- Pricing
- Amazon RDS:Freemium
- PlanetScale:Paid
- Starting price
- Amazon RDS:—
- PlanetScale:$5/month (Single-node Postgres)
- Free plan or trial
- Amazon RDS:Free trial
- PlanetScale:—
- Plans
- Amazon RDS:—
- PlanetScale:Single-node Postgres $5 per month · PlanetScale Metal $50 per month
- Works with
- Amazon RDS:AWS Outposts, Amazon RDS Proxy
- PlanetScale:Fivetran, Airbyte, Hightouch, Datadog, Vantage, Debezium, Prometheus, pganalyze
Amazon RDS features
- Automated management. Handles provisioning, configuration, backups, and patching automatically.
- Multi-AZ high availability. Provides automated failover with Multi-AZ deployments for resilience.
- Engine choice. Supports eight database engines including Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server, and Db2.
- Flexible deployment. Offers on-premises (Outposts), custom OS/database environments, and proxy services.
- Scalable storage. Provides General Purpose SSD and Provisioned IOPS storage options up to 64 TiB.
- Pricing flexibility. Pay-as-you-go on-demand, Reserved Instances, and Free Tier with no minimum fees.
PlanetScale features
- Horizontal sharding. Vitess and Neki enable explicit sharding for MySQL and Postgres across thousands of nodes.
- Branch-per-environment. Each branch runs on its own isolated cluster for safe schema changes.
- Unlimited IOPS on NVMe. PlanetScale Metal uses blazing-fast NVMe drives with unlimited IOPS.
- High-availability clusters. One primary and two replicas across three availability zones with automated failover.
- Built-in connection pooling. PgBouncer for Postgres and similar pooling for MySQL reduce connection overhead.
- Query Insights & observability. Integrated monitoring dashboards for Vitess, Neki, and Postgres workloads.
- Database Traffic Control™. Set flexible budgets on query traffic to prevent runaway queries.
- Security & compliance. SOC 1/2, PCI DSS, HIPAA compliance with IP restrictions and private link options.
Amazon RDS vs PlanetScale FAQ
What is the difference between Amazon RDS and PlanetScale?+
PlanetScale offers a hosted MySQL/Postgres service built for horizontal scaling, but is not an AWS service.
Should I use Amazon RDS or PlanetScale?+
Pick Amazon RDS if you want managed relational databases with high availability, a free plan to start with or integrations with AWS Outposts or Amazon RDS Proxy (on Amazon RDS's list, not PlanetScale's). Pick PlanetScale if you want sharded MySQL/Postgres with unlimited IOPS, hosted MySQL/Postgres with scaling or integrations with Fivetran, Airbyte or Hightouch (on PlanetScale's list, not Amazon RDS's).
Is Amazon RDS or PlanetScale free?+
Amazon RDS has a free plan and paid plans. PlanetScale is paid, from $5/month (Single-node Postgres).
Do Amazon RDS and PlanetScale integrate with the same tools?+
Their integration lists don't overlap: Amazon RDS lists AWS Outposts and Amazon RDS Proxy; PlanetScale lists Fivetran, Airbyte, Hightouch, Datadog and 8 more.
On DevHunt
Based on each tool's website and DevHunt data. Details may change; check the official sites.