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 7.8% mindshare in DS, compared to Microsoft’s 10.7% 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

2,134 Views
2,070 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 134 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

4,005 Views
3,925 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Google Cloud SQL

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud SQL vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

February 2026

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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) (9th)

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 February 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud SQL is 7.8%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 10.7%, down from 16.2% 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	10.7%
Google Cloud SQL	7.8%
Other	81.5%

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

"My suggestion to anyone thinking about this solution is to jump into it head-first!"

"What I like the most about Google Cloud SQL is that it handles the management, which allows us to concentrate on our applications."

"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 solution is easy to use. I am impressed with the tool's features and functionality."

"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use, simple, and user-friendly."

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

"Google Cloud SQL enhances our AI-driven projects by providing features like query optimization and scalability for efficiently processing large datasets."

"The product is scalable."

More Google Cloud SQL pros

"Some of the best features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database are its scalability, pricing, and ease of setup."

"My impression is that this solution is quite stable."

"It's easy to work with large amounts of data, query it, and bring it back to a visualization tool to show it to the end users."

"We have multiple applications running for our customers that we can integrate into Azure SQL."

"I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database nine out of 10."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is fairly easy to use and set up for our DBA teams, who use it for various applications and tools like RabbitMQ."

"Database services and Active Directory related functions for this solution are good. Stable, scalable, and easy to install. Its technical support is good."

"The interface is awesome."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

"The overall documentation and the connectors need improvement."

"I would like to see better integration with all the different tools on the platform."

"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."

"The most challenging part is dealing with legacy data from your old systems and migrating it into the new setup, but once you've completed the data migration, it becomes quite convenient to use."

"I would like to see better availability of the product in different regions. It should also improve the security with encryption."

"The monitoring part could be better."

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

"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."

More Google Cloud SQL cons

"It's very slow and too expensive. I really don't think it's a good solution for most cases, except when you specifically need to put your data on the cloud."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database would benefit from enhanced documentation, along with ongoing improvements to scalability and cost-effectiveness."

"I wish the customer service and technical support were a bit quicker, though I recognize that not everything can be solved within an hour or a day."

"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."

"We've had many concurrency issues with it, particularly with applications that do a lot of parallel processing."

"For simple queries, it usually goes smoothly, but more complex issues tend to lead to tough discussions and often require escalation to our Microsoft contact due to slower response times."

"One area for improvement is the need for accurate cost estimates."

"I'm not really a SQL DBA, so I can't go into the depths of the areas that need to be improved. They can maybe make it a bit easier to educate people on how to develop SQL Server in Azure. They can provide some free seminars and webinars and more training in general for easier migration. I know there is some stuff on Microsoft learning, but it would be helpful and useful to have more up-to-date content."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a financial perspective, Google Cloud SQL is on the cheaper side."

"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."

"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."

"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 licensing for this solution is based on subscription."

"Microsoft services are costly, which is the only problem we face. So, pricing is an area of improvement."

"We pay less than $1000 monthly in licensing fees. There are no additional costs."

"From a licensing benefit standpoint, we have clients who are coming with their own SQL licensing with Software Assurance, and they are able to use those licenses for their Azure SQL and reduce costs."

"There is a license required to use the solution and it cost $30 to do the installation."

"It requires a license. As compared to its competitors, such as Oracle, it is affordable and reasonable."

"I have an annual spend number, and it is in the hundred thousand dollar range. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees. Even though you have to look at the cost numbers of what you're going to be charged on a monthly basis, what you have to also remember is that your application may need a lot of rewriting and things like that. You get charged not just for the monthly costs but also for the transactions that occur. If your access to the data layer is not so efficient, your costs will go up because you're pulling far more data than you potentially need. These are hidden costs that nobody ever considers. If your application is not written very efficiently, you may actually increase your costs over on-prem versus cloud."

"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

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Educational Organization

University

Financial Services Firm

12%

Marketing Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

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 27% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Google Cloud SQL

Compared 5% 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 12% 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

February 2026

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

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