# Amazon RDS vs Timescale Cloud

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Amazon RDS

| Attribute | Amazon RDS | Timescale Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 71.9 (60% (medium)) | 46.3 (44% (low)) |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | AWS RDS is a fully managed database service that handles provisioning, configuration, backup, and patching automatically. It supports multiple database engines and scales on-demand to match application usage, allowing databases to be created and managed in minutes. | A managed cloud database service built on PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB that enables high-performance ingestion and analysis of time-series data. Includes automatic partitioning, columnar storage with compression, and tiered storage to cold object storage for efficient management of petabyte-scale datasets. |
| features.capabilities | - | `{"free_tier":true,"engine_family":"postgresql","pricing_model":"usage_based","deployment_type":"independent_multi_cloud","private_networking":true,"self_host_alternative":true,"point_in_time_recovery":true,"extensions_plugin_support":"extensive"}` |
| integrations.count | 15 | 6 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Amazon Aurora"},{"name":"Amazon EC2"},{"name":"Amazon EBS"},{"name":"AWS CloudWatch"},{"name":"AWS CloudFormation"},{"name":"AWS Config"},{"name":"Amazon S3"},{"name":"AWS IAM"},{"name":"AWS Outposts"},{"name":"AWS Graviton3"},{"name":"Amazon QuickSight"},{"name":"Amazon Redshift"},{"name":"AWS Artifact"},{"name":"Amazon GuardDuty"},{"name":"AWS Audit Manager"}]` | `[{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"S3"},{"name":"Iceberg"},{"name":"Tableau"},{"name":"Power BI"},{"name":"Grafana"}]` |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"AWS Free Tier","summary":"$100 AWS credits included; free tier valid for 12 months","features":["Aurora PostgreSQL serverless instances","Database automation (provisioning, backup, patching)"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":100,"period":"one_time","currency":"USD"}],"description":"$100 in AWS credits at sign-up, valid for up to 12 months; eligible services include Aurora. Additional $100 in credits available. For new signups after July 15, 2025: choice of Free Plan or Paid Plan.","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"free_tier_credits":"first year","storage_per_cluster":"1 GiB","aurora_serverless_capacity":"up to 4 ACUs"}},{"free":false,"name":"Aurora Serverless (On-Demand)","summary":"Billed per Aurora Capacity Unit (ACU) per second based on usage","features":["Automatic scaling to hundreds of thousands of transactions per second","Multi-AZ deployments","Read replicas","Global Database support","All Aurora features"],"description":"Auto-scaling configuration that adjusts database capacity based on application needs in real-time","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Aurora Reserved Instances","summary":"Annual commitment with amortized hourly pricing","features":["1-year commitment term","Designated to specific AWS Region and instance type","Billed for every hour of term regardless of running status"],"commitment":"annual","description":"Commitment-based pricing for predictable workloads with significant savings over on-demand","contactSales":false}],"addOns":[{"name":"CPU Credits","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"vCPU-hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.09,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Data API"},{"name":"RDS Extended Support"},{"name":"Database Savings Plans"}],"summary":"Free tier with $100 AWS credits for 12 months. Hybrid pricing: serverless billed per ACU/second, reserved instances with annual commitment, on-demand per hour. Pricing varies by region and instance type.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://aws.amazon.com/rds/aurora/pricing/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-19T14:45:21.479Z","billingPeriods":["hour","month","year"]}` | `{"type":"usage","summary":"Usage-based pricing for storage; free trial available","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.tigerdata.com/learn/understanding-rds-pricing-and-costs","retrievedAt":"2026-08-25T12:13:12.978Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | low | low |
| pricing.transparent | yes | no |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.99 | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.soc2 | yes | yes |

## Capabilities (Managed Databases)

| Capability | Amazon RDS | Timescale Cloud |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Engine family | - | Postgresql |
| Deployment type | - | Independent multi cloud |
| Serverless scale to zero | - | - |
| Database branching | - | - |
| Point in time recovery | - | ✓ |
| Multi region replication | - | - |
| Automatic failover | - | - |
| Private networking | - | ✓ |
| Built in connection pooling | - | - |
| Extensions plugin support | - | Extensive |
| Self host alternative | - | ✓ |
| Pricing model | - | Usage based |
| Free tier | - | ✓ |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:25:22.793Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*