Suggestions appear as you type. Use the up and down arrows to choose one and Enter to open it.

This page's audience our own tag's counts — open to see them
–Visits
–Page views
–Clicks to vendors
–Time on page
–Reading now
Clicks to vendors, by tool
  • –
Top countries
  • –
Devices
  • –

– · visits, page views and clicks counted by our own tag, which counts more than our checked analytics; every figure rounded down · how we count

Head-to-head · MySQL Hosting

Aiven for MySQL vs Amazon RDS

  • Updated Oct 2026
  • Both researched from official sources
  • 5 checks side by side
Higher score Aiven for MySQL #1 in MySQL Hosting 9.4/10 Free plan · 30-day trial Free planFree trial✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Aiven
Amazon RDS #3 in MySQL Hosting 9.1/10 Paid ✓ 1 of 4 features Visit Amazon RDS

Aiven for MySQL leads on 1 check, Amazon RDS on 0, and 4 are even. Who comes out ahead on the 5 yes/no, price and count checks where we have data for both products. The editor score weighs everything else too.

Our verdict

  • Highest scoreAiven for MySQL · 9.4/10
  • Free planonly Aiven for MySQL
  • Free trialonly Aiven for MySQL
  • Most featuresAiven for MySQL · 4 of 4

Aiven for MySQL scores higher on our rubric for mysql hosting: 9.4 against 9.1 out of 10; our editors rank them #1 and #3.

Aiven for MySQL offers free plan; Amazon RDS doesn't.

Aiven for MySQL is the better fit for managed MySQL value seekers. Amazon RDS is the better fit for enterprise AWS-native MySQL hosting.

  • Aiven for MySQL fits best

    Managed MySQL value seekers

  • Amazon RDS fits best

    Enterprise AWS-native MySQL hosting

Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.

Side by side

Feature Aiven for MySQL 9.4/10 Visit ↗ Amazon RDS 9.1/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score 9.4 9.1
Ranking #1 in MySQL Hosting #3 in MySQL Hosting
Best for Managed MySQL value seekers Enterprise AWS-native MySQL hosting
Pricing model Free plan + paid Paid
Starting price $5/mo Not checked yet
Free plan ✓ (best) —
Free trial 30 days —
Deployment Cloud Cloud, Self-hosted
Platforms Web Web
Support Email, Tickets, Community, Docs · 24/7 Phone, Live chat, Email, Community, Docs · 24/7
Compliance SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SSO/SAML SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS
Integrations 5 integrations 8 integrations
Built for Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Aiven for MySQL 4/4 · Amazon RDS 1/4
Automated backups ✓ (best) Not checked yet
Point-in-time restore ✓ (best) Not checked yet
High availability ✓ ✓
Private networking ✓ (best) Not checked yet
Specs
Scaling mode Both Not checked yet
Included storage 8 GB Not checked yet
Our review
Pros
  • Free plan plus $5/month Developer entry tier
  • Point-in-time recovery, backups, and cross-region read replicas
  • Private connectivity, high availability, and broad integrations
  • Managed provisioning, patching, backups, and recovery
  • Multi-AZ failover and read replicas support availability and scaling
  • IAM, VPC, CloudWatch, RDS Proxy, and Outposts integrations
Cons
  • Free and Developer plans exclude integrations and connection pooling
  • The Free plan includes only 1 GB of total storage
  • Production-oriented high availability starts with the Business plan
  • Usage-based pricing can make costs harder to forecast
  • AWS-centered deployment may not suit non-AWS-first teams
  • Configuration and engine choices add planning complexity
Our verdict

Aiven for MySQL is a fully managed relational database service for developers and organizations running web applications, e-commerce systems, microservices, and other workloads. Aiven handles provisioning, patching, backups, security,…

Read the review →

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a managed relational database service for deploying, operating, and scaling databases in AWS environments. It supports MySQL alongside Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQL Server,…

Read the review →
  1. Aiven for MySQLMySQL Hosting 9.4Free plan · 30-day trial
  2. Amazon RDSMySQL Hosting 9.1Paid

Strengths and trade-offs

  • Aiven for MySQL — where it wins

    • Free plan plus $5/month Developer entry tier
    • Point-in-time recovery, backups, and cross-region read replicas
    • Private connectivity, high availability, and broad integrations

    Where it doesn't

    • Free and Developer plans exclude integrations and connection pooling
    • The Free plan includes only 1 GB of total storage
    • Production-oriented high availability starts with the Business plan

  • Amazon RDS — where it wins

    • Managed provisioning, patching, backups, and recovery
    • Multi-AZ failover and read replicas support availability and scaling
    • IAM, VPC, CloudWatch, RDS Proxy, and Outposts integrations

    Where it doesn't

    • Usage-based pricing can make costs harder to forecast
    • AWS-centered deployment may not suit non-AWS-first teams
    • Configuration and engine choices add planning complexity
  • Aiven for MySQL9.4/10 · Free plan · 30-day trial

    Flexible managed MySQL with a free tier, low entry price, and production features.

    Visit AivenFull verdict →
  • Amazon RDS9.1/10 · Paid

    A mature AWS-native choice for managed MySQL operations, scaling, and availability.

    Visit Amazon RDSFull verdict →

More comparisons

All MySQL hosting comparisons → · Full ranking →

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

Last updated · How we research and update