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Google Cloud SQL vs MariaDB 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 SQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (7th), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (10th)
MariaDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Google Cloud SQL is 1.3%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 3.4%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MariaDB3.4%
Google Cloud SQL1.3%
Other95.3%
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.
AB
Co-Founder at Vsigma IT Labs Pvt Ltd
Has supported web application data needs but requires design adjustments to manage complex queries efficiently
Complex queries in MariaDB where the query needs to parse thousands of lines or data values face some performance issues. For small and medium-size volume, it is pretty good. If it goes beyond certain data and complex queries, we see performance issues. We tried the advanced replication feature between different regions, replicating data specifically residing on MariaDB to two different regions of MariaDB data, and there were some technical snags in terms of slowness and longer processing time. Point-in-time recovery in MariaDB is good for small databases. When data volume increases beyond 5 GB or 10 GB per day or runs into double-digit GBs, we found some performance issues. For data below 10 GB, it works fine. Performance is the primary focus area for MariaDB, particularly during transactions or complex query jobs where slow performance is observed. MariaDB is scalable and easy to scale.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It runs really well, it's cheap, it's efficient, it's user-friendly."
"The speed is very good, it's useful in terms of the simplicity of doing backups, you can have redundant databases for reports or posts, it's SQL which is easy to learn if you know something about databases, I like the cloud aspect, the pricing of the solution seems reasonable, and the solution is stable."
"The solution is easy to use. I am impressed with the tool's features and functionality."
"This is a stable solution and offers good performance."
"It's all built into the web browser, so any operating system will work."
"Google Cloud SQL is very easy to use and easy to set up; it brings the benefits of being simple to perform queries, store data that I needed to store, and extract data when I needed to extract it quite quickly, without having to set up a full database and queries around it."
"My suggestion to anyone thinking about this solution is to jump into it head-first!"
"From a database management perspective, it provides services without the need for me to worry about backups, scaling, or other operational issues."
"I would say that for most use cases it works fine."
"MariaDB is a user-friendly solution. Performance wise, it's better than SQL. With SQL, I would need to write a number of queries. In contrast, MariaDB is light."
"The solution is valuable because it has PL/SQL compatibility."
"The product has been stable and reliable."
"MariaDB is easy to install and is stable and scalable."
"It's open source."
"MariaDB is very stable."
"Great monitoring and performance stability."
 

Cons

"The product's user interface could be more user-friendly to improve the overall user experience."
"For data analysis, the AI area of the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"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."
"The purging of the data could be better."
"They could improve documentation and dashboard stability for efficient user experience and database management."
"The monitoring part could be better."
"Google Cloud SQL needs to improve its support for high-end I/O operations. On-prem systems with high I/O capabilities perform better, as Google Cloud SQL takes more time to handle the same tasks."
"We see latency issues, so we were forced to introduce an in-memory store."
"Maria DB has to improve from a management perspective."
"The solution can improve by having support for more integration. However, at this time it is working well for us."
"Could have more integration with user platforms."
"Integration with AWS could be improved."
"Data continuity could be improved."
"Master-master replication is something that needs to be simplified."
"It would be good to have tools for debugging procedures and functions."
"The connect engine is still a bit clunky, but it’s useful and fairly versatile."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"From a financial perspective, Google Cloud SQL is on the cheaper side."
"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."
"It's really cheap. It wouldn't be more than, I believe it's around 50 euro per month for running a cloud SQL."
"The solution is affordable."
"MariaDB is available for free."
"There is a monthly subscription to use MariaDB."
"The licensing cost is approximately $4000.00 per year and the licensing is based on the software and the number of posts that you make."
"MariaDB is a free-to-use solution."
"The product is not expensive."
"The price could be less expensive."
"It is free of charge."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price since there are some support costs involved, even though it isn't an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
 

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 Business28
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise26
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
MariaDB is in the pricey range, especially for huge databases handling terabytes of data. The cost depends on the volume of data and different features enabled during configuration, such as backup ...
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The key area where MariaDB could be improved is its native GUI tooling; while the command-line interface works perfectly fine, the built-in visual tools for administration, management, and query de...
What is your primary use case for MariaDB?
My main use case for MariaDB was web applications, and I have been using MariaDB for just about a year now as I was in the development team. A specific web application where I used MariaDB is a hea...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BeDataDriven, CodeFutures, Daffodil, GenieConnect, KiSSFLOW, LiveHive, SulAm_rica, Zync
Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud SQL vs. MariaDB and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.