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Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Cloud SQL
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (19th), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (6th)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud SQL is 8.5%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 11.3%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database11.3%
Google Cloud SQL8.5%
Other80.2%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

VD
Database Engineer at Springer Nature
Migration to cloud eases management but needs better support for high I/O operations
Google Cloud SQL needs to improve its support for high-end I/O operations. On-prem systems with high I/O capabilities perform better, as Google Cloud SQL takes more time to handle the same tasks. There is also difficulty in changing the time zone after the database is set up. Moreover, some features available in MSSQL on-prem are missing on Google Cloud SQL, affecting migration potential.
Thomas Sawyer - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Director, Platform Architecture at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation – SMBC Group
Automatic tuning and multi-region availability have reduced manual workloads and improved performance management
The features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I like the most are easy scaling and high availability. I appreciate those features because it's easy to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database readily available in a multi-region infrastructure. Using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very easy; it's much easier than SQL on-premise because I don't have to worry about deploying infrastructure, and I can rapidly deploy via infrastructure as code. I am using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database. We are using the new feature of data encryption in Microsoft Azure SQL Database with customer-managed keys only. The reliability and stability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database platform are rock-solid; it's as good, if not better, than what our on-premise stability has been from an uptime perspective.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Google Cloud SQL is highly scalable."
"It is not the cool features that I find valuable, it is the stability of Google Cloud Platform."
"Google Cloud SQL enhances our AI-driven projects by providing features like query optimization and scalability for efficiently processing large datasets."
"The solution is easy to use. I am impressed with the tool's features and functionality."
"It directly provides robust data safety. It also offers various other storage options, such as Google Cloud Storage. These services ensure data security and redundancy. Furthermore, it includes different storage classes, allowing flexible data management tailored to specific needs."
"The deployment model allows for significant control and flexibility."
"Ease of management and the ability to oversee the statistics of your SQL."
"From a database management perspective, it provides services without the need for me to worry about backups, scaling, or other operational issues."
"The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment takes about one hour."
"The solution is quite straightforward to set up."
"Microsoft Azure SQL Database supplies reliability and efficiency with its infrastructure, which is very beneficial to our organization."
"The stability is good and the performance is fantastic. Even when we try to do an inquiry into issues we can do it easily."
"The hardware is all managed by Microsoft."
"It is easily scalable, and it is faster than SQL Server. It is also less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage."
"The ease of provisioning and administration is most valuable."
"Microsoft's expertise in SQL Server is a significant advantage."
 

Cons

"Google's technical support is good, but they tend to never reopen a case and to send us snippets from the publicly available documentation. It's not as helpful as you would expect, not just for Google Cloud SQL but for all of Google Cloud products."
"The customer support should be improved."
"In the case of Google, they need to work on a more easy interface for users."
"The performance compared to AWS is not as fast, and the technical support could be better as they don't have a dedicated team, but mostly AI handles the support now."
"For data analysis, the AI area of the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"It is hard to do logging with the solution."
"The product's user interface could be more user-friendly to improve the overall user experience."
"When discussing media files, such as images and audio files, stored in Google Cloud, concerns about handling large amounts of data arise."
"The way it has been designed, in the on-premises deployments, the underlying Windows OS is highly scalable but has a very large resource requirement. A lot of power-related and memory-related things are there, which I have not seen in the RHEL and Oracle. I have not tried SQL on RHEL EXEC. On Windows, infrastructure-wise, a very large workload is running on the SQL. This issue is related to Windows, not SQL."
"I am very happy with Microsoft Azure SQL Database; I don't think there's anything in particular I would change, except to make it cheaper."
"We need improvement in the latency between availability zones. The managed SQL MI does not allow us to control the zone it runs in, which affects latency."
"Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved overall by being able to compete with some of the features that come from things such as PostgreSQL."
"I would like to the solutions scalability to be improved."
"One area for improvement is setting up logs, especially for servers like VM SQL. It was also tricky to connect services on VNets to on-premise."
"Microsoft Azure SQL Database could improve by providing more support for Availability Groups within Managed Instance."
"The document storage is primarily relational, which is not ideally suited for SQL. If there were better integration with SharePoint for document handling in SQL, it would greatly benefit the organization. Moreover, the current on-premise limitations prevent direct file pulling, limiting certain capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While the platform’s pricing may be higher, it aligns with industry standards, considering the quality of service and features provided."
"From a financial perspective, Google Cloud SQL is on the cheaper side."
"You need to pay extra costs for backup and replication."
"It's really cheap. It wouldn't be more than, I believe it's around 50 euro per month for running a cloud SQL."
"The pricing is very much an important factor as to why we use this solution."
"The solution is affordable."
"It is not expensive, especially considering the significant reduction in database management time."
"It is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"I believe the licensing is more on a global scale."
"The license is based on the number of users."
"I am not aware of the exact pricing, but our monthly bill for Azure is around 80,000. It is less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage."
"If we use a smaller or free-sized Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it is extremely cost-effective and much cheaper than on-premise enterprise licenses, which are expensive."
"In terms of the cost, SQL Azure is a pay-per-use solution, particularly because it's a cloud subscription, so you pay as much as you use it."
"The pricing is flexible and can be adapted based on our requirements but the pricing options are complex especially if we are using a VM."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud SQL?
The implementation part of the product was easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud SQL?
We have set up automated patch management for Google Cloud SQL, and it does on a daily basis what needs to be done, so it is pretty good overall for maintaining our database security.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud SQL?
Sometimes the sharing with third parties or configuring that in Google Cloud SQL is not the most intuitive. From a user perspective, if Google Cloud SQL integrated AI directly into the query so tha...
What do you like most about SQL Azure?
The automated scalability feature of SQL Azure has proven to be highly beneficial, particularly when deployed in the cloud.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SQL Azure?
I would say I am at a basic experience level with the pricing, setup costs and licensing because while I am the administrator for the service, I do not provision the services and worry about the co...
What needs improvement with SQL Azure?
I have no comments at the moment on how Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved. I have no comments on additional features that I would like to see released in the next release. I do not have ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BeDataDriven, CodeFutures, Daffodil, GenieConnect, KiSSFLOW, LiveHive, SulAm_rica, Zync
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud SQL vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.