IT AI Index
Index › Data platform › Managed databases › Small business › September 2026 Edition

Managed relational databases for small business buyers

Asked as “managed relational database service”, and as “hosted SQL database”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 54 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Amazon RDS
Contested
24% of first choices, contested.
ShowinginAll 67 categories →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessAmazon RDS24%ContestedThis pageMid-marketAmazon RDS32%ContestedStanding →EnterpriseAmazon RDS30%ContestedStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Amazon RDS24%25%57accepted challenger
02DigitalOcean Managed Databases17%3%29accepted challenger
03Neon15%3%36accepted challenger
04Supabase11%3%33accepted challenger
05Google Cloud SQL11%19%53accepted challenger
06Azure SQL Database6%21%39accepted challenger
07MySQL4%9%11accepted challenger
08Amazon Aurora4%39%18criticized challenger
Show the one product at 0%, ordered by negative rate
09PlanetScale0%24%33accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud SQLAmazon RDS vs Amazon AuroraGoogle Cloud SQL vs Amazon Aurora

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Amazon RDS24%
02DigitalOcean Managed Databases17%
03Neon15%
04Supabase11%
05Google Cloud SQL11%
06Azure SQL Database6%
07MySQL4%
08Amazon Aurora4%
09PlanetScale0%

02What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Amazon RDS
25%
14 of 57 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Why we do NOT recommend AWS RDS or Google Cloud SQL on a tight budget” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Google Cloud SQL
19%
10 of 53 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Why we do NOT recommend AWS RDS or Google Cloud SQL on a tight budget” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Amazon Aurora
39%
7 of 18 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“The services to genuinely *avoid* right now are the ones that combine premium pricing with heavy lock-in (Aurora, proprietary engines)” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
PlanetScale
24%
8 of 33 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“PlanetScale is MySQL-only, and its pricing is roughly 2x serverless Postgres rivals). Avoid unless you have an explicit, near-term scale requirement.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

63 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 886 links across 237 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

g2.com
37 answers · 65 citations · 10 models
toolradar.com
33 answers · 40 citations · 9 models
estuary.dev
vendor site · Estuary27 answers · 27 citations · 10 models
northflank.com
vendor site · Northflank22 answers · 28 citations · 9 models
digitalocean.com
vendor site · DigitalOcean18 answers · 39 citations · 9 models
tech-insider.org
18 answers · 20 citations · 7 models
aws.amazon.com
vendor site · Amazon16 answers · 33 citations · 8 models
cloudexpat.com
15 answers · 15 citations · 5 models
zipdo.co
14 answers · 19 citations · 9 models
reddit.com
13 answers · 20 citations · 7 models
cloud.google.com
11 answers · 15 citations · 7 models
worldmetrics.org
11 answers · 12 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

toolradar.com/best/managed-databases/for/small-businesses
31 answers · 9 models
estuary.dev/blog/relational-databases-for-small-businesses
27 answers · 10 models
g2.com/categories/database-as-a-service-dbaas/small-business
22 answers · 8 models
tech-insider.org/aws-rds-vs-azure-database-vs-google-cloud-sql-2026
16 answers · 6 models
cloudexpat.com/compare/rds-vs-azure-sql-vs-cloud-sql
15 answers · 5 models
northflank.com/blog/best-database-providers
12 answers · 6 models
g2.com/discussions/what-are-the-top-relational-database-options-for-small-b…
11 answers · 8 models
aws.amazon.com/rds/pricing
10 answers · 5 models
cloudpricecheck.com/guides/choosing-cloud-database
10 answers · 8 models
isquiz.com/post/cloud-database-services-compared
10 answers · 5 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best managed relational database service for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which hosted SQL database would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top managed relational database services for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best managed relational database service for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a managed relational database service. What should we look at?”Negative“Which managed relational database services should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Google Cloud SQL
Two alternativesAmazon RDS, Supabase
against: Amazon AuroraAmazon RDSChanged
Two alternativesAzure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL
Supabase
Two alternativesAmazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL
MySQL, PostgreSQL
Two alternativesAmazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL
no first choiceagainst: Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL
GPT-5.4 miniAmazon RDS
Two alternativesAzure Database for PostgreSQL, Google Cloud SQL
Amazon RDSHeld
Three alternativesAmazon Aurora, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL
Amazon RDS
Three alternativesAzure Database for PostgreSQL, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQL
Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQLno first choiceagainst: Amazon Aurora, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle-managed offerings
Gemini 3.5 FlashNeon
Four alternativesAmazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, PlanetScale, Supabase
SupabaseChanged
Three alternativesAmazon RDS, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Neon
Neon, Supabase
Two alternativesDigitalOcean Managed Databases, PlanetScale
against: AWS RDS / Amazon Aurora ServerlessDigitalOcean Managed Databases, Neon, Supabase
Two alternativesPlanetScale, Render Postgres
against: Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQLNeon, Supabase
Two alternativesAmazon Aurora, PlanetScale
against: Amazon RDSagainst: Amazon Aurora, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, CockroachDB, Google Cloud Spanner, Oracle RDS / Oracle Autonomous Database, PlanetScale
Perplexity SonarAmazon RDS
Two alternativesAmazon Aurora, Google Cloud SQL
Azure SQL DatabaseChanged
One alternativePostgreSQL
Amazon RDS/Aurora
Four alternativesAzure SQL Database, CockroachDB, Google Cloud SQL, Supabase
Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL
One alternativeMySQL
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastAmazon RDS
Five alternativesAzure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Neon, Supabase
DigitalOcean Managed DatabasesChanged
Four alternativesAmazon RDS, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Google Cloud SQL, Supabase
Neon, Supabase
Three alternativesAmazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, DigitalOcean Managed Databases
against: PlanetScaleNeon
One alternativeSupabase
against: Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, PlanetScale, Render Postgresno first choice
Six alternativesAmazon RDS, CockroachDB, Google Cloud SQL, Neon, PlanetScale/Vitess, Supabase
against: Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL
Mistral SmallAmazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL
One alternativeAzure SQL Database
Amazon RDS, Azure SQL DatabaseChanged
Two alternativesGoogle Cloud SQL, Neon
Neon, PlanetScale
Three alternativesAmazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL
DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Linode Managed Databases, MySQL, Neon
Four alternativesGoogle Cloud SQL, PlanetScale, PostgreSQL, Vultr Managed Databases
no first choicenothing named
DeepSeek V4 FlashAmazon RDS
Four alternativesAzure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Neon, PlanetScale
DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQLChanged
Two alternativesAzure Database for PostgreSQL, Neon
against: Amazon RDSNeon, Supabase
Three alternativesAmazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL
against: PlanetScaleDigitalOcean Managed Databases, Linode Managed Databases, Vultr Managed Databases
Three alternativesAmazon Aurora, Azure Database for PostgreSQL/MySQL, Google Cloud SQL
against: Amazon RDSno first choiceagainst: AlloyDB for PostgreSQL, Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, CockroachDB, Google Cloud SQL, Neon, Oracle Autonomous Database, PlanetScale, Scylla, Supabase
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceAzure SQL DatabaseChangedMariaDB, MySQLno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Amazon RDS
Qwen 3.7 FlashAmazon Aurora, Neon
Three alternativesAmazon RDS, Azure SQL Database / Azure Database for Postgres/MySQL, PlanetScale
Amazon AuroraChanged
Two alternativesAzure SQL Database, Neon
Supabase
Four alternativesAWS RDS/Aurora, Aiven, Neon, PlanetScale
Neon
Three alternativesAmazon Aurora, Railway, Render Postgres
against: MySQLAiven, DigitalOcean Managed Databases
Five alternativesAmazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Supabase, Vultr
against: Airtable, Amazon Aurora, Notion databases, Oracle Autonomous Database
Kimi K2Amazon RDS
Four alternativesAzure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Neon, PlanetScale
SupabaseChanged
Three alternativesAzure Database for PostgreSQL/MySQL, Neon, PlanetScale
against: Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQLNeon, Supabase
Four alternativesAmazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQL
against: PlanetScaleNeon
Two alternativesAmazon RDS, Supabase
against: Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, PlanetScaleno first choice
Six alternativesAmazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQL, PlanetScale, Supabase
against: Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQL, Google Cloud Spanner, Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle MySQL HeatWave
GLM 4.7 FlashXAmazon RDS
Five alternativesAzure SQL Database, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQL, Neon, Supabase
no first choiceChangedSupabase
Three alternativesDigitalOcean Managed Databases, Neon, PlanetScale
against: Amazon RDS, Azure Database, Google Cloud SQLDigitalOcean Managed Databases, Supabase
One alternativeAmazon RDS
against: PlanetScale, Tursono first choiceagainst: Amazon RDS, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle
MiniMax M2.5DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQL
Two alternativesAmazon RDS, Neon
Amazon RDSChanged
Five alternativesAzure SQL Database, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQL, Neon, PlanetScale
DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Supabase
Three alternativesAmazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, PlanetScale
DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Supabase
Four alternativesAmazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL, Heroku Postgres, PlanetScale
no first choiceagainst: Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:27yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:42yes26 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:43yes1527 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:29yes206 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:31yes4120 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:42yes55 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:28yes1011 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:27yes64 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:47yes539 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:38yes1042 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:50yes31398 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:45yes932 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:21no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:21yes47 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:48yes720 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:39yes204 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:21yes4717 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:42yes55 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:27yes2018 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:26yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:24yes533 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:22yes1554 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:29yes1040 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:49yes987 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:22yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:27yes49 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:25yes1825 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:46yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:39yes5122 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:42yes56 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:30yes2021 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:34yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:38yes1053 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:41yes1563 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:46yes25121 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:41yes2579 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:47yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:30no04 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:30yes1927 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:35yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:32yes4515 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:23yes55 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:32yes1011 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:21yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:27yes534 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:33yes1535 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:34yes2543 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:48no011 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:44no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:37no07 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:40yes1225 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:36yes207 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:38no07 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:48no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:44yes1014 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:40yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:43yes1058 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:24yes1525 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:42yes1967 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:40no011 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 07:27yes1810 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 07:23no07 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 07:40yes925 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 07:37yes205 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 07:37yes4217 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 07:23yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 07:46yes1921 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 07:38yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 07:34yes1568 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 07:22yes1526 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 07:45yes3068 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 07:29yes2276 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
AlloyDB read as AlloyDB for PostgreSQL
Azure SQL read as Azure SQL Database
DigitalOcean read as DigitalOcean Managed Databases
Linode read as Linode Managed Databases
Render read as Render Postgres
Unresolved, counted raw
AWS RDS / Amazon Aurora Serverless
Amazon RDS or Aurora
Azure DB
Azure SQL Database / Azure Database for Postgres/MySQL
Database Mart
Datavail
MariaDB
Notion databases
Oracle MySQL HeatWave
Oracle RDS / Oracle Autonomous Database
Oracle-managed offerings
Percona
PlanetScale/Vitess
Scylla
Self-managed PostgreSQL
Somee.com
Zoho Creator
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in data platform

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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