[Tostino]

It’s like comparing the experience of buying an iPhone at an Apple Store versus ordering one online.

At the Apple Store, an employee will take off the protective film and actually help you set it up properly (RDS).

Running a benchmark on a default, unconfigured self-hosted Postgres instance is like receiving that online iPhone order, seeing it covered in shipping film, not bothering to transfer from your last phone, and trying to use it anyway.

Concluding that self-hosted is slower based on that is like complaining the iPhone screen is unresponsive while refusing to peel off the plastic just because "that's how it came out of the box." You are expected to take the film off before you use it.