Amazon RDS vs Crunchy Bridge
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Amazon RDS and Crunchy Bridge built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose Amazon RDS if…
Teams already inside AWS, where the database sitting in the same VPC as everything else is worth more than any single feature on this page. Six engines, up to 35 days of point-in-time recovery, and read replicas you create and delete yourself.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Crunchy Bridge if…
Anyone who wants Postgres and nothing else, from people who work on Postgres. Ten days of per-minute recovery is included in the price of every cluster rather than sold as a tier, and replicas can sit in another region or another cloud.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Amazon RDS: You want a database per pull request. RDS documents no branching, and replicas are manual — AWS states outright that it does not autoscale them.
- Crunchy Bridge: You need a free plan to start on, or a second database engine later. This is a single-engine paid service.
3 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Amazon RDS 0
Crunchy Bridge 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Amazon RDS | Crunchy Bridge |
|---|---|---|
| Execution | ||
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported |
| Data | ||
| Engine | PostgreSQL, alongside MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server and Db2. Each engine is a separate RDS product with its own version list and its own feature support, so a capability documented for one is not a capability of RDS as a whole. | PostgreSQL only. Crunchy Bridge is a single-engine service — there is no MySQL or analytics product beside it in the same offering — and it runs on all three major clouds so the database can sit next to whatever else you already run. |
| Point-in-time recovery | Any point inside the configured backup retention period, so up to 35 days. Transaction logs are uploaded to S3 every five minutes, which is what bounds how close to now the latest restorable time can be. | Any minute inside the 10 days of retained backups. The WAL is streamed every 60 seconds or 16 MB, whichever comes first, and a restore produces a fork of the cluster rather than replacing it. |
| Read replicas | Supported — 15 per primary, raisable on request | Supported |
| Backup retention | Between 0 and 35 days, set per DB instance; 0 disables automated backups entirely. The default depends on how the instance was created — one day via the API or CLI, seven days via the console — so there is no single default to quote. Multi-AZ DB clusters cannot be set below 1 day. | 10 days, included in the cluster price rather than sold as a tier, and extendable by configuring additional daily, weekly, monthly and yearly backups to keep. |
Where they differ.
Engine
- Amazon RDS
- PostgreSQL, alongside MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server and Db2. Each engine is a separate RDS product with its own version list and its own feature support, so a capability documented for one is not a capability of RDS as a whole.
- Crunchy Bridge
- PostgreSQL only. Crunchy Bridge is a single-engine service — there is no MySQL or analytics product beside it in the same offering — and it runs on all three major clouds so the database can sit next to whatever else you already run.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL — Amazon Relational Database Service User Guide ↗
“Amazon RDS supports DB instances running several versions of PostgreSQL. [...] DB instances running PostgreSQL support Multi-AZ deployments, read replicas, Provisioned IOPS, and can be created inside a virtual private cloud (VPC).”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Crunchy Bridge — Crunchy Bridge Documentation ↗
“Crunchy Bridge is a fully managed Postgres service from Crunchy Data. It takes care of running and managing Postgres so that you can stay focused on building your applications, not on keeping your database up and running. Bridge provides highly available Postgres across every major cloud provider — Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure — so regardless of where you're running, you can closely colocate your database.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
Point-in-time recovery
Any point inside the configured backup retention period, so up to 35 days. Transaction logs are uploaded to S3 every five minutes, which is what bounds how close to now the latest restorable time can be.
Any minute inside the 10 days of retained backups. The WAL is streamed every 60 seconds or 16 MB, whichever comes first, and a restore produces a fork of the cluster rather than replacing it.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Restoring a DB instance to a specified time for Amazon RDS — Amazon Relational Database Service User Guide ↗
“RDS uploads transaction logs for DB instances to Amazon S3 every five minutes. To see the latest restorable time for a DB instance, use the AWS CLI describe-db-instances command and look at the value returned in the LatestRestorableTime field for the DB instance. [...] You can restore to any point in time within your backup retention period.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Backups — Crunchy Bridge Documentation ↗
“kept current by streaming the WAL every 60 seconds or 16MB (whichever comes first). 10 days of these backups will be retained by the platform automatically. These backups can be used to restore a fork of your cluster to any minute in its history.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
Backup retention
- Amazon RDS
- Between 0 and 35 days, set per DB instance; 0 disables automated backups entirely. The default depends on how the instance was created — one day via the API or CLI, seven days via the console — so there is no single default to quote. Multi-AZ DB clusters cannot be set below 1 day.
- Crunchy Bridge
- 10 days, included in the cluster price rather than sold as a tier, and extendable by configuring additional daily, weekly, monthly and yearly backups to keep.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Backup retention period — Amazon Relational Database Service User Guide ↗
“If you create a DB instance using the Amazon RDS API or the AWS CLI and if you don't set the backup retention period, the default backup retention period is one day. If you create a DB instance using the console, the default backup retention period is seven days. [...] You can set the backup retention period of a DB instance to between 0 and 35 days. Setting the backup retention period to 0 disables automated backups. For a Multi-AZ DB cluster, you can set the backup retention period to between 1 and 35 days.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Backups — Crunchy Bridge Documentation ↗
“10 days of these backups will be retained by the platform automatically. [...] By default, Crunchy Bridge automatically captures and retains the most recent 10 days' worth of backups for each cluster. That is included in the price of each cluster.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Should I choose Amazon RDS or Crunchy Bridge?
Pick Amazon RDS if Teams already inside AWS, where the database sitting in the same VPC as everything else is worth more than any single feature on this page. Six engines, up to 35 days of point-in-time recovery, and read replicas you create and delete yourself.
Pick Crunchy Bridge if Anyone who wants Postgres and nothing else, from people who work on Postgres. Ten days of per-minute recovery is included in the price of every cluster rather than sold as a tier, and replicas can sit in another region or another cloud.