Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

Google and Microsoft are both solutions in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category. Google is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.8, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. Google holds a 8.5% mindshare in DS, compared to Microsoft’s 11.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Google Cloud SQL

Read 23 Google Cloud SQL reviews

1,988 Views
1,968 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 134 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

3,559 Views
3,488 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Google Cloud SQL

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Microsoft Azure SQL Database and Google Cloud SQL compete in the SQL database solutions category. Microsoft Azure SQL Database holds the upper hand due to its extensive enterprise-focused features and integration capabilities.

Features: Microsoft Azure SQL Database provides high availability, scalability, and a variety of integration options. It is recognized for its robust documentation and security investments. Google Cloud SQL is known for its ease of management, scalability, and seamless integration with GCP services.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure SQL Database could improve automation, security, and bring more features to align with on-premises SQL. Google Cloud SQL users wish for better documentation, easier integrations, and more cost-effective solutions, especially with BigQuery.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers flexible deployment options across public, private, and hybrid clouds, with varying support experiences. Google Cloud SQL emphasizes simple public cloud deployment but could enhance proactive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure users face complex licensing structures but benefit from a pay-as-you-go model that can reduce total ownership costs. Google Cloud SQL has a simpler pricing model but can become expensive at scale, though efficient management often offsets these costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud SQL vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud SQL vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

December 2025

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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 Database as a Service (DBaaS)

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Relational Databases Tools (19th), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (6th)

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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud SQL is 8.5%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 11.3%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database	11.3%
Google Cloud SQL	8.5%
Other	80.2%

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

Victor Danso

Database Engineer at Springer Nature

Migration to cloud eases management but needs better support for high I/O operations

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. There is also difficulty in changing the time zone after the database is set up. Moreover, some features available in MSSQL on-prem are missing on Google Cloud SQL, affecting migration potential.

Read full review

Thomas Sawyer

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is not the cool features that I find valuable, it is the stability of Google Cloud Platform."

"The setup was straightforward. Just a couple of clicks, and we were done."

"The valuable feature of Google Cloud SQL is its high availability option. The product is stable."

"This is a stable solution and offers good performance."

"Google Cloud SQL is highly scalable."

"Its most valuable feature is that it's scalable. I can start off with a base of a lot of data and move as much as I want and it's the same as if asked to do a lot of infrastructure changes."

"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 most valuable feature for us is the Postgres on Google Cloud SQL since it supports most of the features we need."

More Google Cloud SQL pros

"Provisioning the instance, connecting to it, and deploying full-stack applications end-to-end on Azure is much easier than AWS."

"The automated scalability feature of SQL Azure has proven to be highly beneficial, particularly when deployed in the cloud."

"The reason we moved to the cloud was for the convenience of not having any physical hardware to maintain."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that our customers do not have to manage the solution."

"It is good for scalability and high availability. It is also secure because of Microsoft's cloud investment. It is easy to use because it is on the cloud. Creation or making it available through web services is super easy. Azure SQL can be quickly published as web services for APIs to connect with other applications. Because it is in Microsoft Cloud, you can easily integrate with Microsoft stack."

"Microsoft is at the forefront of databases, and everyone uses SQL."

"SQL Server has helped to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership."

"Customers can benefit from a lot of cost savings if they go for Azure."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

"I would appreciate more flexibility with specific extensions applicable to engines like PostgreSQL."

"The purging of the data could be better."

"For data analysis, the AI area of the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"The monitoring part could be better."

"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."

"The customer support should be improved."

"The most vulnerable problem with Google SQL is that while you can customize your access control list, it provides you with a public IP address."

"They could improve documentation and dashboard stability for efficient user experience and database management."

More Google Cloud SQL cons

"I think that the cost management in SQL is not clear because we may use some tax to identify products, but in some cases identifying the transactions in SQL is not easy for some financial cost centers."

"Integration needs to be improved for this solution."

"They could improve Azure SQL by adding some of the features available on-prem, such as cross-database queries and the ability to run particular jobs. We need to migrate those to something else, like a function or logic app."

"In terms of support, they don't give much support."

"The benefits I have realized from using Microsoft Azure SQL Database are currently limited since we've only done it in test and dev environments right now, and we haven't moved to production, so we haven't realized the full gain just yet."

"I would like to see the cloud connectivity environment improved."

"They should also simplify the security in Azure. We are using the cloud as a platform, so there is no physical infrastructure. We're using Azure components like databases and servers to create an application. Integrating those components in terms of permissions and security is challenging for us. Maybe there is a lack of knowledge on our side, but it's not straightforward."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database could be improved by offering an easier way to view all existing roles in the database without needing complex queries found online."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You need to pay extra costs for backup and replication."

"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."

"While the platform’s pricing may be higher, it aligns with industry standards, considering the quality of service and features provided."

"It is not expensive, especially considering the significant reduction in database management time."

"The solution is affordable."

"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 licensing for this solution is based on subscription."

"It's reasonably priced and when you compare it with other products in the cloud environment, it's cheaper."

"The license is based on the number of users."

"If we use a smaller or free-sized Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it is extremely cost-effective and much cheaper than on-premise enterprise licenses, which are expensive."

"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."

"When looking at the long-term expenses associated with running software on an on-premises server, the costs are almost equivalent but when we include insurance for devices, onsite fees for servers, and other related costs, we may find that this is a cost-effective solution."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Educational Organization

University

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	59
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	61

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud SQL?

The implementation part of the product was easy.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Cloud SQL?

Sometimes the sharing with third parties or configuring that in Google Cloud SQL is not the most intuitive. From a user perspective, if Google Cloud SQL integrated AI directly into the query so tha...

See all answers

What do you like most about SQL Azure?

The automated scalability feature of SQL Azure has proven to be highly beneficial, particularly when deployed in the cloud.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 28% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 6% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 4% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 4% of the time

More Google Cloud SQL Competitors

Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 16% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 13% of the time

Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud SQL

January 2026

Download Google Cloud SQL product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

January 2026

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database product report

Overview

Google Cloud SQL is a fully-managed database service that makes it easy to set up, maintain, manage, and administer your relational PostgreSQL and MySQL databases in the cloud. Google Cloud SQL offers high performance, scalability, and convenience. Hosted on Google Cloud Platform, Cloud SQL provides a database infrastructure for applications running anywhere.

Google

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a-service that delivers predictable performance, scalability, business continuity, data protection, and near-zero administration to cloud developers and solution architects. This is the deep technical library for Azure SQL Database.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

BeDataDriven, CodeFutures, Daffodil, GenieConnect, KiSSFLOW, LiveHive, SulAm_rica, Zync

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud SQL vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

December 2025

Free Report: Google Cloud SQL vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

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