Announcing the Top Rated Relational Databases for 2019

We are excited to announce the Top Rated Relational Databases for 2019! Top Rated awards showcase today’s top-of-the-line product in Relational Databases based solely on positive user feedback and satisfaction scores. These awards make the voice of the market the primary decider into the industry’s best products.

Top Rated awards are the most trusted in the industry because they are never influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s size, popularity, or status as a TrustRadius customer. So without further ado…

Here are the winners:

Oracle Database 12c

Oracle’s 12c database was the company’s first cloud-ready relational database. It is available free on a developer license, allowing users to download and use the database for development, research, and learning purposes. Released in 2013, Oracle Database 12c remains available and commonly used. It offers multitenant architecture, native JSON, and in-memory column store. On TrustRadius, most reviewers come from enterprises (74%). Reviewers appreciate its ability to handle large quantities of data and superior tools supporting data access control, data warehousing, and other features that set 12c apart such as SQL Developer, Oracle Data Guard, pluggable databases, and its multitenant architecture.

“[Oracle Database 12c] supports our primary OLTP functions, as well as BI and warehouse. The balance of speed, security, and accessibility is what sets it apart… Oracle has done a fantastic job of providing developer-friendly tools. SQL Developer is a top-notch product that is completely free for developers. It allows people to easily and clearly query and update data… great for in-house development. If you are buying applications off the shelf, you probably don’t care what kind of database supports them. But to easily create, alter, and maintain tables, views, etc. nothing beats Oracle in my opinion.”

Verified User | Employee in Information Technology | Financial Services Company

Amazon Relational Database Service

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a managed relational database delivered on the cloud, providing rapid scalability with relatively limited administrative cost. It provides the option to choose among multiple database engines. These include the company’s own Aurora database as well as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others. Amazon RDS’ Performance Insights can be used to visualize database load and detect performance issues, and evaluate the impact of database operations. The biggest portion of Amazon RDS reviewers on TrustRadius are from small businesses (42%). Reviewers appreciate that Amazon RDS is scalable and affordable, and describe the service as a fault-tolerant, simplified, and secure solution for hosting and backing up enterprise data, even at high volume.

“Amazon RDS is our core database platform. It is used for both development and production loads, throughout the company. RDS provides us with a full-featured database without the cost of managing the server or installation… Amazon RDS is a perfect choice for most database scenarios. The combination of high-quality database software and a very hands-off approach to management makes Amazon RDS worth checking out. Advanced features allowing redundancy and disaster recovery make this a perfect choice for production loads.”

Verified User | Engineer | Financial Services Company

MySQL

MySQL is a popular open-source relational database owned and supported by Oracle. It is available free via the community edition or in various commercial editions supported by Oracle. MySQL is also available on Oracle cloud, packaged with a variety of enterprise features (data encryption, enterprise firewall) and MySQL tools (e.g. Query Analyzer, etc.). On TrustRadius, MySQL is predictably the most frequently rated and reviewed open source database, and reviews are provided by users from companies of all sizes. Reviewers enjoy that MySQL is free yet frequently patched and updated, performant, and that it can integrate data from any source while remaining relatively lightweight on resource consumption.

“I primarily use MySQL for data storage for content-management systems for websites built in Drupal or WordPress. It provides a simple, easily-managed solution to the need for performant data storage and querying for site data, such as pages or posts. I also use it as the back-end data storage and querying solution for static front-end web applications built in Angular, React or Vue. It remains my go-to choice when I need an SQL database for my applications and/or CMS. [MySQL] is extremely well-suited for use cases across a broad range of applications such as e-commerce and business applications, and most small to larger organizations will find it well-suited for their data storage needs for a particular application.”

Joel Tanzi | Software Engineer | Computer Software

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access is a relational database management system available as part of a subscription to Microsoft Office 365’s family and business plans. Access is offered by Microsoft as an easy to use, convenient method of creating applications that require a database. Access provides a simplified GUI to conduct queries and generate reports, without having to write SQL code. Designed for non-developers, Access provides tools and templates allowing a user to create database applications, and visualize data in easily-shared reports. On TrustRadius, Microsoft Access is one of the more frequently reviewed relational database products, by companies of all sizes. Reviewers appreciate its simple GUI, the speed with which solutions can be deployed, and the high customizability for creating purpose-specific apps and reporting.

“We currently use Microsoft Access as a front end to some of our databases that are in other formats and link the tables. This allows us to create queries and reports in a simple interface that many of our staff can use with some training and once the ODBC connections have been set up. There are times when we want to cross-reference data between different data sources, and Access allows us the ability to link/import multiple sources to achieve our analysis goals.”

Scott Herring | Database Support Specialist | Education Management

Congratulations to the winners of the Top Rated Relational Databases Award!

What are Relational Databases?

Relational databases store data in rows and columns, where rows represent entities and columns represent qualities or concepts describing those entities. Entities are distinguished from one another by a primary key, which is a column (or multiple columns) that uniquely identifies each row or entity. Relational databases provide ACID-compliance to data stores (standing for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability of data) and consistent relationships that hold across tables. This referential integrity makes relational databases ideal for storing and preserving data representing business transactions, or as the basis for data warehouse applications. Relational databases are accessible and manipulable via Standard Query Language (SQL), the standard language for interacting with relational database management systems (RDBMS). 

Opposite relational databases are non-relational databases or NoSQL databases, which are not constrained to tables. These databases provide additional functionality useful for scaling or working with unstructured data. But for jobs that similarly require durability and reliability of frequent routine transactions, relational databases present the right choice. Many relational databases are available open source. These may present a lower total cost of ownership where features associated to proprietary databases are not required.

Top Rated Criteria

Products included in the 2019 Top Rated Relational Databases list must have been in the top tier of their category TrustMap as of August 1st, 2019. To qualify for the Relational Databases Top Rated Award, products must have at least 10 reviews written within the past year, a TRScore of at least 7.5 out of 10, and must receive at least 1.5% of the traffic in their category.  Every reviewer is verified and every review is vetted before publication. Products are plotted on the TrustMap based on end-user data, including users’ likelihood to recommend scores as well as buyer research patterns. To learn more about TrustMaps and Top Rated methodology, check out this page.