No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Google Cloud Spanner vs SkySQL 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

Google Cloud Spanner
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SkySQL
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 7.5%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SkySQL is 0.4%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Google Cloud Spanner7.5%
SkySQL0.4%
Other92.1%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

LJ
System Architect at UST Global España
Offers good performance to users
The tool lacks to offer AI features. In the future, I would like the product to offer AI features to users. Nowadays, we are creating small acronyms for our SQL Server. We put some templates. If I just put your name and stop it, the entire cloud can be explored, but such features are not there in Google Cloud Spanner. As a layman rather than a developer, if I create a tool or a procedure. If I write a procedure and then when you describe a procedure, a dummy procedure will be written for you, and it will be available for you as a template in SQL Server, but such kind features are not there in Google Cloud Spanner.
PN
Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Managed database has supported critical asset data management and enabled reliable analytics
It is still early in our evaluation of SkySQL, so we do not have major concerns, but if anything, we would like to see even better documentation, onboarding guidance, and monitoring capabilities to make adoption and ongoing management easier. During evaluation, having more end-to-end onboarding guides with real-world deployment examples would make it easier to validate different architectures. For monitoring, it would be helpful to have more out-of-the-box dashboards, proactive health alerts, and clear recommendations for performance tuning and capacity planning. Those improvements would help teams evaluate and operate the platform more efficiently. I give SkySQL an eight out of ten instead of a nine or a seven because we are still in the evaluation phase, so I would like to gain more hands-on experience with deployment monitoring, performance under real workloads, and overall operational management before making a final judgment. We also see opportunities for enhanced onboarding guidance and more comprehensive out-of-the-box monitoring and performance recommendations. We are considering Microsoft Azure and AWS before making a final decision about SkySQL, and we have not finalized the cloud provider yet, but we are considering Microsoft Azure and AWS. It is between the two, and I am not sure which one we are going to deploy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its scalability. Scalability comes with two options, among which Google Cloud Spanner can scale horizontally, compared to other relational databases that scale vertically."
"The application deployment in the cloud is the best feature of the infrastructure."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."
"We can scale the solution if we need to."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"SkySQL is easy to use and has reliable performance, offering scalability and fast execution."
"In my experience, the best feature that SkySQL offers is a fully managed database service which reduces operational overhead, along with its high availability and automatic failover for business-critical applications, and its scalability to handle growing data volumes and overloads, plus automated backups and disaster recovery capabilities."
 

Cons

"The tool lacks to offer AI features."
"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."
"The cost can be a bit high."
"Google came up with something called Cloud Spanner Emulator, which fails to work like the real product if I want to develop some code and run a database locally on my machine."
"I want to improve the deployment of cameras and surveillance infrastructure."
"I believe one area for improvement would be more advanced monitoring and reporting features."
"It is still early in our evaluation of SkySQL, so we do not have major concerns, but if anything, we would like to see even better documentation, onboarding guidance, and monitoring capabilities to make adoption and ongoing management easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"It is expensive."
"Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side."
"Google Cloud Spanner is an expensive solution."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database as a Service (DBaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
900,125 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
33%
Construction Company
32%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Transportation Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Spanner?
Google Cloud Spanner has all the features of a traditional relational database, including schemas, SQL queries, ACID transactions, and provides excellent integration and monitoring tools as well as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Spanner?
Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side. I am not sure if this is a rumor or if it's fake news, but I believe that having BigQuery and GCP together could be a little cos...
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Spanner?
The tool lacks to offer AI features. In the future, I would like the product to offer AI features to users. Nowadays, we are creating small acronyms for our SQL Server. We put some templates. If I ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Google Spanner
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Streak, Optiva, Mixpanel
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MongoDB and others in Database as a Service (DBaaS). Updated: May 2026.
900,125 professionals have used our research since 2012.