# Managed relational databases for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Asked as "managed relational database service" and as "hosted SQL database", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/it-data/managed-relational-databases/smb

**Standing:** Supabase leads with 29% of first choices; verdict contested. 58 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Supabase](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/supabase/index.md) | 29% | 2% | 59 |
| 2 | [Amazon RDS](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/amazon-rds/index.md) | 24% | 19% | 74 |
| 3 | [DigitalOcean Managed Databases](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/digitalocean-managed-databases/index.md) | 10% | 9% | 33 |
| 4 | [Neon](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/neon/index.md) | 7% | 0% | 41 |
| 5 | [Google Cloud SQL](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/google-cloud-sql/index.md) | 5% | 14% | 57 |
| 6 | [Amazon Aurora](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/amazon-aurora/index.md) | 5% | 33% | 30 |
| 7 | [Azure SQL Database](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/azure-sql-database/index.md) | 3% | 18% | 44 |
| 8 | [PlanetScale](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/planetscale/index.md) | 3% | 14% | 29 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 77 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL; alternatives Supabase
- GPT-5.4 mini: Amazon RDS with PostgreSQL; alternatives Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Managed MySQL
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Neon, Supabase; alternatives Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, PlanetScale
- Perplexity Sonar: Amazon RDS; alternatives Azure SQL Database, CockroachDB, Google Cloud SQL, Neon
- Grok 4.20: Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) from AWS; alternatives Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Supabase
- Mistral Small: Amazon RDS; alternatives Amazon Aurora, Google Cloud SQL, Supabase
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Supabase; alternatives Amazon RDS, Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, PlanetScale
- Llama 4 Maverick: Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Supabase; alternatives Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Neon
- Kimi K2: Amazon RDS; alternatives Azure SQL Database, Google Cloud SQL, Supabase
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Google Cloud SQL; alternatives Amazon RDS, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Supabase
- MiniMax M2.5: Amazon RDS, Supabase; alternatives AWS Lightsail Postgres, Crunchy Bridge
- GPT-6 Luna: PostgreSQL on Amazon RDS; alternatives Azure Database for PostgreSQL on Azure, Cloud SQL on Google Cloud
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Amazon RDS; alternatives Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure SQL Database, DigitalOcean Managed Databases, Google Cloud SQL

## Sources the answers cite

65 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- gane.ai/index: 38 answers, 40 citations
- aws.amazon.com: 24 answers, 43 citations
- spotsaas.com: 23 answers, 24 citations
- g2.com: 19 answers, 25 citations
- digitalocean.com: 17 answers, 24 citations
- toolradar.com: 14 answers, 19 citations
- northflank.com: 14 answers, 17 citations
- cloud.google.com: 13 answers, 19 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://gane.ai/index/it/it-data/managed-relational-databases/smb (37 answers)
- https://spotsaas.com/list/database-as-a-service--dbaas--provider/for-small-business (21 answers)
- https://aws.amazon.com/rds (14 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/dbaas-providers (11 answers)
- https://techvendorindex.com/compare/best-database-for-small-business (10 answers)
- https://estuary.dev/blog/relational-databases-for-small-businesses (9 answers)
- https://northflank.com/blog/top-managed-database-services (9 answers)
- https://toolradar.com/best/managed-databases/for/small-businesses (9 answers)
- https://aws.amazon.com/rds/pricing (8 answers)
- https://toolradar.com/best/managed-databases (8 answers)

## Warned against

- Amazon RDS: 14 of 74 labels negative. "Some models explicitly recommend avoiding RDS for production core systems unless absolutely necessary" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)
- Amazon Aurora: 10 of 30 labels negative. "Amazon Aurora unless you *know* your I/O usage — cost unpredictability." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Azure SQL Database: 8 of 44 labels negative. "Amazon RDS, Azure SQL, or Google Cloud SQL for tiny, mostly idle workloads... can cost more than expected" (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)
- Google Cloud SQL: 8 of 57 labels negative. "Be cautious with major cloud provider managed relational database services (e.g., AWS RDS, Google Cloud SQL, Azure Database for MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQL Server) for small businesses." (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
New leader: Amazon RDS (24%) to Supabase (29%). Margin 5 points, within noise.

- Supabase: 18% to 29%, +11. Cleared the floor by 0 points · rank 2 → 1 of 77.
- Google Cloud SQL: 16% to 5%, −11. Cleared the floor by 0 points · rank 3 → 5 of 77.
- DigitalOcean Managed Databases: 15% to 10%, −5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 4 → 3 of 77.
- Amazon Aurora: 1% to 5%, +4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 13 → 6 of 77.
- Neon: 10% to 7%, −3. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 5 → 4 of 77.
- PlanetScale: 0% to 3%, +3. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 50 → 8 of 77.
- Azure SQL Database: 4% to 3%, −1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 6 → 7 of 77.
- Amazon RDS: 24% to 24%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 1 → 2 of 77.

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.