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Google Cloud SQL vs SQL Server comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Relational Databases Tools
17th
Ranking in Database Management Systems (DBMS)
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (7th)
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Ranking in Database Management Systems (DBMS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
275
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Google Cloud SQL is 1.3%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 10.3%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.3%
Google Cloud SQL1.3%
Other88.4%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

RituRaj - PeerSpot reviewer
SDE 2 at Virtusa
Drag and drop workflows have simplified data mapping and currently improve my cloud database work
The IPaaS Connector, which I have found most valuable, is part of Google Cloud SQL. Google Cloud's user interface is really good, which improves efficiency in my database operations. The UI is excellent, making it easier to understand what we are doing. Currently, I am working on IPaaS Connector, so it is really just a clickable interface without writing any code. I simply use drag and drop and connecting lines, and it is working. Google Cloud SQL's global infrastructure improves our database's latency metrics because we are using Gemini in our project. Since both are products of Google, it makes our product faster.
Peter Larsson - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads
SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Google Cloud's user interface is really good, which improves efficiency in my database operations."
"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."
"My suggestion to anyone thinking about this solution is to jump into it head-first!"
"The solution is easy to use. I am impressed with the tool's features and functionality."
"The valuable feature of Google Cloud SQL is its high availability option. The product is stable."
"The most valuable feature for us is the Postgres on Google Cloud SQL since it supports most of the features we need."
"The main benefit to our organization is the fact that we no longer need DB admins that take care of the physical servers, backups etc... All this is managed by GCP."
"Ease of management and the ability to oversee the statistics of your SQL."
"SQL Server is stable."
"The installation is really easy."
"The performance of the SQL Server is very good."
"It is easy to use and easy to perform a backup."
"It is widely used and we never have problems with it."
"Microsoft makes life easy to expand your environment through clustering tools and after-hours operational scheduling features."
"I value the ability it gives me to test on small machines and easily scale up to larger devices for live applications."
"As an engineer working for multiple organisations, MS SQL has proven stability and operational power."
 

Cons

"In the case of Google, they need to work on a more easy interface for users."
"I am yet to explore a lot of features that are present in this solution. However, it would be good if more documentation is available for this solution. This would help us in preparing for the certification exam and understand it better. Currently, we don't have much documentation. We do the labs for 20 or 25 minutes, but we can't capture and download anything."
"Sometimes the sharing with third parties or configuring that in Google Cloud SQL is not the most intuitive."
"We see latency issues, so we were forced to introduce an in-memory store."
"To create a seamless data integration, the title integration of these databases with the data integration platforms is essential. This is what we would like to have in a future release."
"For data analysis, the AI area of the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The most vulnerable problem with Google SQL is that while you can customize your access control list, it provides you with a public IP address."
"For write operations – yes, as there is no MySQL clustering mode."
"It would be great if we were able to run it on multiple operating systems and not only stick with Windows."
"I would like to have a more directed modeling, to have the flexibility to design all databases using a graphic interface."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing and technical support."
"For each additional core feature you want to add to your DBMS edition, it is more money."
"On the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) side, I have noticed more bugs in terms of being able to connect to our SQL servers. I can't tell how many times my recent server list got dropped or cleaned out. It is a pain, and it would be nice to have that recent connect list when you connect in. For whatever reason, once in a while, I get a hard error, and it'll close. When I go back in, everything is cleared out. It is annoying when you are working with more than a hundred database instances."
"Its ability to handle certain kinds of large data could be improved."
"The only people that can use it directly are developers."
"The price could be better: Compare to Oracle it is cheaper but with the existence of many open source databases currently in the market, consider reducing the Licensing cost."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You need to pay extra costs for backup and replication."
"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."
"The solution is affordable."
"The pricing is very much an important factor as to why we use this solution."
"It is not expensive, especially considering the significant reduction in database management time."
"It's really cheap. It wouldn't be more than, I believe it's around 50 euro per month for running a cloud SQL."
"Its licensing is yearly. There are no additional costs. There is only the subscription license."
"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"The cost associated with SQL Servers is on the higher side."
"The areas that need improvement are with regards to the commercial aspect of the solution, the licensing cost could be reduced in order to help customers to adopt it."
"We are on a monthly subscription and the price could improve. However, the price has worked out well in some deployments. The problem is you never know what kind of services been installed and you have to be in touch with many people, such as which servers are active or which are not. I did face a couple of issues in terms of subscriptions and the pricing model. They have improved over time."
"There is a license required for servers and for the POS we use the free version. The free version allows you to have tables and a total database size of approximately 10 GB, which is enough for our requirements."
"The licensing is on an annual basis."
"I rate the product’s pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
35%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise119
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I would to improve a few glitches in Google Cloud SQL that I have recently noticed. There are a few UI glitches that I have noticed recently, specifically something called data mapping in IPaaS Con...
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud SQL?
I am not working with Oracle; everything I am working on is on Google. I would like to improve a few glitches in Google Cloud SQL that I have recently noticed. There are a few UI glitches that I ha...
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BeDataDriven, CodeFutures, Daffodil, GenieConnect, KiSSFLOW, LiveHive, SulAm_rica, Zync
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud SQL vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.