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Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs vCloud Air comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

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)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
vCloud Air
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 9.2%, down from 14.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCloud Air is 2.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database9.2%
vCloud Air2.4%
Other88.4%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
it_user613995 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Solutions Architect - EMEA & APAC at Blue Medora
With the VPC, you can run your workloads in an active state, use it for development work and for hosting SQL/Exchange Servers in IaaS; RaaS/DaaS for DR activities.
All three components of the vCloud Air are equally valuable and important, i.e., IaaS, DaaS and RaaS. I like the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) offering compared to the Dedicated Cloud. It gives me the flexibility to utilize the pay-as-you-go option. You can run your workloads in an active state at reasonable prices. I have seen lots of companies use it for their development work, as well as for hosting SQL and Exchange Servers, i.e., in the active-passive mode instead of Replication (RaaS). Disaster Recovery is also a great feature that is affordable and easy to use. Disaster Recovery is a great component of the vCloud Air, where you can protect the on-premises cloud infrastructure, by providing self-service recovery options using the vSphere Replication. Some of the features that really stand out and I have used in my projects are: * Direct Connect: It provides high speed and private line connectivity. * Offline Data Transfer: For encrypted bulk data transport.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has all of the advantages that are available in a normal SQL server, except it is presented in an online environment that can be used from everywhere."
"The integration with Azure Data Factory is seamless and straightforward, described as just a click away."
"The SQL connector effectively syncs data to our database."
"Valuable features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database include its quick deployment capabilities, the ability to spin up an environment easily, and seamless integration with Microsoft products."
"Azure SQL Database is very quick and easy to use."
"The scalability is probably the biggest feature that we are benefiting from by being in the cloud."
"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."
"It has significantly streamlined our disaster recovery plans, making it much more straightforward to spin up new instances as opposed to setting up a new VM with all necessary packages. The normal cost of our VMs with storage has been significantly reduced."
"VMware Workstation has an interesting feature to manage vSphere infrastructure (and also stand-alone ESXi hosts) that is really powerful and useful, for example to avoid to install the vSphere client (or the integration plugin) just to open one VM console or to change the power status for some VM."
"This is the part that should be making admins and CIOs smile."
"The Cloud DRaaS solution provided the organization with new levels of flexibility and cost control, together with rapid expansion capability."
 

Cons

"From a commercial perspective, I would rate this solution very low."
"Azure SQL had a bit of a learning curve to start, but it was fairly simple once I understood how to develop it."
"The preset configuration switches we can select on SQL Azure should be made more liberal to work on."
"If it's a transitional system, there is a lot of reporting, so the solution becomes a bit slow when it's churning out tons of data, but it's good for a mid-sized application"
"Its automation can be improved. SQL Server Agent was a very big part of the on-prem tools."
"The customer support is hard to reach, with Microsoft’s technical support being difficult to get in touch with."
"SQL Azure's performance monitoring features need to be improved."
"They should include more accessible functions for image tooling."
"I feel the user interface/portal can be improved further. I did experience timeout issues and the UI was performing slowly at times."
"I don’t think it is quite where EC2 is with regard to capabilities and features but VMware is investing a lot in vCloud Air."
"It’s a really good idea, but the current implementation is very limited: you can simply see your VMs and just open the VM console."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you go with SQL Azure Database, you can create a small database, which is around $4 to $5 per month for development purposes."
"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."
"We have a three-year contract. The cost was somewhere around $70-80,000 for the original deployment, which was about two years ago"
"I recommend considering a pay-as-you-go pricing model initially."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"I believe the licensing is more on a global scale."
"With one being expensive and five being competitive, I would give the product a four out of five as it's relatively competitive. It is also important to note that pricing is based on usage."
"I'm not sure what the exact price is, but it's a moderate amount. It's not too expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise61
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your primary use case for SQL Azure?
My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are third-party applications.
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH
Lumeta, LifeSite, Clear Tec Solutions, National Physician Services, Queens University of Charlotte, California Natural Resources Agency, Pacific Disaster Center, Seventy Seven Energy Inc., Columbia Sportswear , CSS Corp
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MongoDB and others in Database as a Service (DBaaS). Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.