Why Are There No Budget-Friendly Relational Database Options on AWS?

You're mostly paying for the convenience of a managed service with RDS. If you're looking to save some cash, running your own lightweight database on a small EC2 instance is an option, though it does mean you'll need to handle all the setup and maintenance yourself.

Honestly, if you find $10 a month too steep, AWS might not be the best fit. But keep in mind, there are also free tier options for RDS that can help get you started without breaking the bank.

If you need something really lightweight, you might want to consider alternatives like SQLite or even DynamoDB for cheaper solutions. Although these aren't direct replacements for relational databases, they might fit your needs depending on your application.

You could potentially host the database yourself if paying $10 a month is a challenge. It would require more management, but it could save you some money in the long run.

They actually do have options like Aurora which can scale to zero compute when it's not in use—this can help with costs. Plus, you only pay for storage which starts at just 10 cents per GB per month.