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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) (6th), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (9th)
MariaDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Google Cloud SQL is 1.1%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 3.7%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MariaDB3.7%
Google Cloud SQL1.1%
Other95.2%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rituraj NSIT - 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

"Google Cloud SQL provides complete customization options, along with a dashboarding tool and a comprehensive suite of tools that can be used to customize and build any application needed."
"The solution is easy to use. I am impressed with the tool's features and functionality."
"Google Cloud SQL is highly scalable."
"They have good multi-region failure support, and we can just set up there and read replicas directly and we can fall back."
"The product is scalable."
"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."
"The deployment model allows for significant control and flexibility."
"Google Cloud SQL is easy to start with and allows me to scale as needed, which is advantageous from a developer perspective."
"Visual Studio offers unit testing integration and extensive searching capabilities."
"The documentation is quite straightforward."
"The product is easy to use and not hard to learn, therefore, when someone asks me for a good DB to use, then I tell them about MariaDB."
"The price of this solution represents a very good compromise between the cost and what it offers."
"The most valuable feature of MariaDB is the power it provides. It is a powerful solution."
"We have been running our instance since 2013 and it needs almost no maintenance."
"The product has been stable and reliable."
"I would say that for most use cases it works fine."
 

Cons

"In my opinion the most vulnerable problem with Google SQL is each SQL node is provided with a public IP address."
"The monitoring part could be better."
"Better integration with other tools could improve this solution."
"The customer support should be improved."
"It is hard to do logging with the solution."
"Google's technical support is good, but they tend to never reopen a case and to send us snippets from the publicly available documentation. It's not as helpful as you would expect, not just for Google Cloud SQL but for all of Google Cloud products."
"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."
"The performance compared to AWS is not as fast, and the technical support could be better as they don't have a dedicated team, but mostly AI handles the support now."
"The dashboard and pricing need improvement."
"The connect engine is still a bit clunky, but it’s useful and fairly versatile."
"MariaDB should provide HA and archive logging... I haven't had the opportunity to use the features provided by the solution since I don't know how to see them."
"Replication could be better, and it's not so simple. It would be better if they had a replication server. It would make things a lot easier. You need to have that replication server, but not in the same server farm. Then there will be a bit of latency between both because you should have one in one city and another one in a different city. That kind of solution should be more baked into every single database today. Mirroring the database in a live environment where any record written on the production server replicates instantly across the fiber on the other server wasn't easy. Many people don't even bother with that, and they just run one server."
"The scaling for database online transactions needs improvement."
"The stability could always continue to be improved upon."
"Master-master replication is something that needs to be simplified."
"The difficult part related to the product stems not from the tool itself but is related to learning how to implement the product in the right way without creating any wrong configuration that could cause security issues or performance issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very much an important factor as to why we use this solution."
"From a financial perspective, Google Cloud SQL is on the cheaper side."
"It's really cheap. It wouldn't be more than, I believe it's around 50 euro per month for running a cloud SQL."
"You need to pay extra costs for backup and replication."
"The solution is affordable."
"It is not expensive, especially considering the significant reduction in database management time."
"While the platform’s pricing may be higher, it aligns with industry standards, considering the quality of service and features provided."
"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."
"MariaDB is open-source and self-hosted."
"The price could be less expensive."
"This is an open source solution with no licensing fees."
"The cost is quite good. You can have the open source, free version, which has adequate capacity."
"This is an open-source product, which can be used free of charge."
"MariaDB is a free-to-use solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
 

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 Business27
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 do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
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?
Sometimes, complex queries that were supported in Oracle are not available in MariaDB. Advanced indexing is not available. Oracle is very advanced compared to MariaDB, and those advanced features a...
 

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: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.