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Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs Percona Server comparison

 

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

Azure Database for PostgreSQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (5th)
Percona Server
Ranking in Open Source Databases
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Azure Database for PostgreSQL is 1.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Percona Server is 2.4%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azure Database for PostgreSQL1.9%
Percona Server2.4%
Other95.7%
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Sathish Palanisamy - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Data Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Improves database performance, supports AI integration, and accelerates customer-focused innovation
Azure Database for PostgreSQL can be improved in the area of elastic capabilities. One of the things we were actively looking for is the elastic feature, which was made a GA at this Ignite event. I am really happy that finally in Azure, we have a product which we can use for elastic clusters. If you are bound with a single server, then you have a vertical limit. Now you do not have any limits. As long as your use case grows, we can grow. The only thing I would maybe be thinking about is we should also allow customers to pick different node sizes for every node inside the elastic eventually. Some nodes do not need that big capacity. So that may be a nice-to-have feature, though it is not a must-have at this point.
Pieter Geelen - PeerSpot reviewer
Freelancer at geelen.io
Reliable open-source database has supported our migration and improved e-commerce performance
Percona Server seems great to me overall. If I had to think of any small area for improvement for Percona Server, it would be around the proxy story. When adding a proxy to manage traffic better, we first tried SQL Proxy, but it never really worked for us, which was unfortunate because SQL Proxy offers better optimizations for read performance. We did have success with HAProxy, but it works on a network level, while SQL Proxy was designed to be SQL-aware and distribute parts of the query across the database cluster. The performance gain we were hoping for with SQL Proxy did not materialize, so we remained on the network level with HAProxy. Databases can be finicky regarding the performance they need. We had some disk I/O latency issues, which led us to use different types of nodes in our Kubernetes cluster where we provisioned Percona Server explicitly. There is a lot of IOPS happening under the hood, and while I suspect the application was not very efficient, it was also challenging to identify that we were experiencing performance issues due to disk performance. It would be helpful to clarify the metrics related to disk I/O latency so we could understand where our bottlenecks are.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Horizontal scaling has helped manage our workloads, making it easier for us to stay cost-efficient while also scaling when we get more traffic on our application."
"Automatic patching and backups have a huge impact on my database management strategy—we have an operations team of two people and do not have time to handle database maintenance manually, so we chose platform-as-a-service for this reason."
"Azure Database for PostgreSQL is hugely discounted and cost-effective compared to the previous expenses for maintaining an on-premises PostgreSQL database."
"With PostgreSQL, the documentation is perfect, and using it on Microsoft is easy because there is documentation for Microsoft PostgreSQL, which I find easy to follow."
"Automatic patching and backups have saved us time; anything automatic is a blessing—it allows us to be hands-off, and the reliability has been very good with it."
"Overall, Azure Database for PostgreSQL has been good for us."
"We use PostgreSQL to speed up application development. Our applications are ready sooner because we don't need to depend on other database teams."
"The most valuable features of Azure Database for PostgreSQL are its networking capabilities, which allow for integration with other Azure services."
"Percona Server has positively impacted my organization because it is open source, and if the official MongoDB goes in different directions or makes its product expensive, we can still use Percona Server, which serves as a sort of safety net."
"In my use of Percona Server, I've found that the replication and High Availability features are the most valuable."
"Percona Server has positively impacted my organization by reducing downtime for applications and improving backup capabilities."
"After switching to Percona Server, we were able to resolve those issues quickly."
"Percona Server's scalability is very strong, as it features thread pooling for over 10,000 connections, scales out horizontally, and comes with XtraDB Cluster and ProxySQL, making it very effective."
"We find the product mostly stable."
 

Cons

"I do not know how Azure Database for PostgreSQL can be improved or what additional features I would prefer to see. There may be some pain points that would be valuable to fix."
"Azure Database for PostgreSQL has not really helped reduce infrastructure costs at my company."
"My impressions of the latency and availability of Azure Database for PostgreSQL is that it is a concern that arises post-migration."
"While the flexibility of the server for financial reasons is understandable, better switching between primary and backup would make transitions smoother."
"Support at best is a five out of ten."
"Perhaps a minor improvement could be made in simplifying user additions, allowing for an easier process rather than scripting it out. However, scripting is not a significant issue."
"I would add that from my perspective, Microsoft technical support isn't great; we have tickets sitting in the bucket."
"Support can certainly get better."
"Percona Server could be improved by adding more advanced query fields, which would be very helpful."
"If I had to think of any small area for improvement for Percona Server, it would be around the proxy story."
"I also think there should be more use cases and documentation on deploying in Kubernetes with real-life examples, as currently, the documentation is minimal, making it difficult in a production situation."
"If Percona had flashback capabilities, it would be ideal."
"Percona Server could be improved to keep pace with other flavors of MySQL, such as MariaDB, and could pivot to be Percona Server for MariaDB given Oracle's reduced investment in MySQL recently."
"It doesn't reclaim disk space when rows are deleted."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pay-as-you-go pricing model plays a critical role in managing database-related costs and resource allocation. We build using Infrastructure as Code (IAC) and maintain a focus on FinOps to control Azure service costs. Some clients are pushy on price. It's critical to automate it, so we're just using it when appropriate and switching it off in certain scenarios."
"The pricing experience is positive. Azure Database for PostgreSQL reduces the need for hardware investments, and the pay-as-you-go pricing model positively affects database-related costs by allowing us to start small and scale as needed."
"We do not pay for a full-year subscription because our usage is still at the beginning phase and not much. The pay-as-you-go model works well for us."
"There aren't any notable areas for improvement that I could see. PostgreSQL was self-sufficient with no need for additional database knowledge to maintain it."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Azure Database for PostgreSQL is positive; I appreciate it all. The pricing is very cost-effective and stable given that we have many data...
What needs improvement with Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
Azure Database for PostgreSQL can be improved in ways I'm very curious to explore with Horizon. I'm interested in seeing how the fully enterprise-hardened features change things and where that blur...
What is your primary use case for Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
My main use cases for Azure Database for PostgreSQL came from a personal project to scratch an itch, and it was the easiest one to go grab. I appreciate how easy PostgreSQL is to get running locall...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Percona Server?
I do not have experience with pricing, setup cost, or licensing for Percona Server.
What needs improvement with Percona Server?
I believe it would be great to have tools to deploy Percona Server in Docker so that we can split a huge database server into many small servers, which are easier to maintain and delegate to junior...
What is your primary use case for Percona Server?
My main use case for Percona Server is deploying the community version without support to MongoDB servers in Kubernetes, and I also use Percona Server Exporter tools. Using Percona Server for deplo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Pricefalls Marketplace, Micpoint, Rent the Runway, Transmart, Wattpad, Singular Group, Invoca, 3E
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs. Percona Server and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.