Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service comparison

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Download the complete report

Helped 860,168 peers since 2012

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

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

117

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Exadata Express Clou...

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 15.4%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

Charley Hanania

Data Platform Specialist at QS2 AG - Quality Software Solutions

It is very easy to implement, manage, and offers great insights into what is happening inside the engine

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is integrated into other Azure capabilities and has a great foundation being on SQL Server with a long history of security, performance, and usability from a DBA perspective. Once you've set up a server, adding databases is easy. There's a minor challenge with having data in separate databases that you want to connect like we do on premises. I'm looking forward to using some of these new AI-driven functions that have come out around vectorization. Having the data closer to my transactional databases or data makes it easy to augment and enhance the Database and applications I currently use. It's great that Azure SQL now seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Fabric. It's a first-tier service in the cloud that connects to web applications and other databases. The data transformation orchestration capabilities within Database Factory and similar capabilities make it effortless to move that stuff forward.

Read full review

Shrikant Navelkar

Director at Clover Infotech

Enhances performance without fine tuning databases

They need to simplify the monitoring of the Exadata services. They have to make it more simple for the users to operate or manage. And one more thing, I would expect that other databases of Oracle, like MySQL Enterprise Edition, if technologically, Oracle makes some advancement and allows MySQL Enterprise Edition to run on Exadata, I think that will improve their market share exponentially. Today, on Exadata, you run Oracle databases, which is given. Apart from that, Oracle also has Oracle MySQL database, open source. If that open-source database also runs on Exadata, I think that will help a lot of customers. In the next release, Oracle can provide a script-level solution to migrate or consolidate cross-platform databases from Unix platform to Oracle Exadata on Linux platform; if they can provide some migration tools, I think that will help.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SQL Server has helped to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership."

"The most valuable aspect of SQL Azure is the SQL language itself. It's open and everybody can use it at my company. Also, we thought in the beginning that the response time would be inadequate, but it's actually decent. It's much better than expected. Then again, I'm not a programmer, but that's what I hear from our development team."

"Because the solution is cloud-based it's highly manageable, it makes maintenance of logs, space, storage and backups much easier compared to a traditional SQL server installation."

"The solution is a fairly mature product. It provides good stability."

"The initial setup was straightforward. We did not migrate from an existing system but implemented it from scratch and did not require Microsoft support. We were building Power Platform apps using SharePoint databases and Excel. And after that, we realized that we had to integrate it with SQL. It wasn't too hard, and our partners have people with experience."

"Very easy to use on any platform and works well."

"The solution is quire more stable than other tools."

"Overall, Azure SQL has been great. The ease of deployment and scalability are significant reasons we push our larger clients to Azure. We could throw the kitchen sink at the thing if we wanted."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

"Having the prediction happen in the modular format allows you to start with a lower version of Exadata and then you can keep on upgrading it as per your requirement."

"The solution is very stable and offers great performance."

"I like that Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is easier to use and is a cost-saving solution because you won't need to hire people to run and maintain it."

"One of the most valuable parts of the solution is the high availability within the system and the performance enhancement without making any changes or fine-tuning the databases."

"The performance of the tool is valuable."

"I highly recommend Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service as a very good solution if you can afford it."

"I would rate Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service ten out of ten for its overall solution."

"In the cloud, Exadata is more scalable. The on-prem version was limited. It wasn't that scalable because it only came in a quarter rack, half rack, and full rack. In the cloud, it scales to what you need."

More Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service pros

Cons

"The preset configuration switches we can select on SQL Azure should be made more liberal to work on."

"Azure SQL can improve by adding more machine learning features like other databases, such as Cassandra or Cosmos DB."

"The solution is somewhat user-friendly, but it's limited by the lack of full backward compatibility."

"The solution has to scale up its expertise for hosting Oracle."

"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 haven't explored SQL Azure's features much, but I would like to see some better integration with Python."

"I need Microsoft to allow their network to access open source technologies."

"Lacks some tools on the SQL Server for data virtualization."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

"Oracle's support could be better."

"The support must be faster."

"We use artificial intelligence for deep learning, and it would be a huge benefit to implement this in Oracle Exadata."

"Scaling Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service can be done, but the process is a little tedious, which could be an area for improvement in the solution."

"The only downside is the difficulty in monitoring, and that's why I would like to implement MySQL database."

"I feel there is a need for better integration with Google Maps and Google Earth. This is crucial for me in the geographical facilities of the environment."

"The product's installation process needs improvement. It could be more accessible."

"The solution's pricing could be improved."

More Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have an annual spend number, and it is in the hundred thousand dollar range. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees. Even though you have to look at the cost numbers of what you're going to be charged on a monthly basis, what you have to also remember is that your application may need a lot of rewriting and things like that. You get charged not just for the monthly costs but also for the transactions that occur. If your access to the data layer is not so efficient, your costs will go up because you're pulling far more data than you potentially need. These are hidden costs that nobody ever considers. If your application is not written very efficiently, you may actually increase your costs over on-prem versus cloud."

"The cost is around $2,000 per month."

"When you go with SQL Azure Database, you can create a small database, which is around $4 to $5 per month for development purposes."

"We have the licensing fee, and we are also paying a third party to maintain it with an SLA. There is no infrastructure cost, but its running costs are higher than expected. There is the cost of the Azure cloud, which is pricier than expected, but it is not specific to SQL Azure. It is specific to the cloud. You expect it to be cheaper, but it is more expensive to run it."

"It is expensive. Snowflake and PostgreSQL are cheaper than this. Google is also cheaper than Azure. Its licensing is on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is based on usage and storage."

"Its price can definitely be lower. It is pretty pricey."

"It is beneficial in terms of cost because you are charged per data unit instead of licensing."

"We have a three-year contract. The cost was somewhere around $70-80,000 for the original deployment, which was about two years ago"

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

"I think Oracle pricing is usually above average market price."

"The tool is not cheap, but it is not really expensive."

"The price of this solution is very comparative to others on the market. There is no direct comparison between this solution and with something else because I do not see any other similar product."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database as a Service (DBaaS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

49%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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?

The pricing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap, affecting user uptake. A gradual reduction in price could improve accessibility and user numbers, making it easier for users to adopt the s...

What needs improvement with SQL Azure?

Pricing could be improved to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database ( /products/microsoft-azure-sql-database-reviews ) more accessible. A reduction in price might encourage more users and bring more pro...

What do you like most about Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?

The performance of the tool is valuable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?

Oracle is quite expensive here in Brazil. Pricing is the primary challenge we face with Oracle.

What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?

I feel there is a need for better integration with Google Maps and Google Earth. This is crucial for me in the geographical facilities of the environment.

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Comparisons

Compared 33% of the time

Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 24% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database product report

Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Download Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service product report

Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service report

Overview

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a-service that delivers predictable performance, scalability, business continuity, data protection, and near-zero administration to cloud developers and solution architects. This is the deep technical library for Azure SQL Database.

Microsoft

Oracle Database Exadata Express Cloud Service delivers a managed Oracle Database 12c Release 2 Enterprise Edition with options, running on Oracle Exadata engineered systems – all at a highly affordable entry-level price. It is a full Oracle Database experience, compatible with what you get on-premises or in other Oracle Database Cloud Services, provisioned within minutes, and suitable for small to medium sized data.

Oracle

Sample Customers

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH

TAFEL LEIPZIG, AS ONE

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service