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

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

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

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

"From a database management perspective, it provides services without the need for me to worry about backups, scaling, or other operational issues."

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

"The initial setup is straightforward."

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

"I found its storage and security to be the most valuable. It was a good experience. It is also very stable and scalable, and its support is perfect."

More Google Cloud SQL pros

"The initial setup is very easy. It's extremely straightforward."

"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."

"Very easy to use on any platform and works well."

"The most valuable feature of SQL Azure is the user-friendly VMs."

"Hosting these types of databases on-premises can be challenging, but if you have the ability to do it on Azure, that is beneficial, and it also removes security obstacles as well."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database has significantly improved our operations by allowing us to extract data and generate comprehensive reports in Power BI."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to segregate read-write operations helps me manage my application and workloads effectively."

"The biggest return on investment from my perspective when using Microsoft Azure SQL Database comes from how easy it is to set up and how much of a foundation it already has in terms of being a trusted platform."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

"It is hard to do logging with the solution."

"The only thing that could be better is the pricing."

"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."

"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 customer support should be improved."

"When discussing media files, such as images and audio files, stored in Google Cloud, concerns about handling large amounts of data arise."

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

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

More Google Cloud SQL cons

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

"The initial setup was very complex."

"The user interface (UI) could be more flexible."

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

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

"It can have more dashboards for monitoring, which would naturally help a lot. Other than that, everything is okay."

"Some issues with scalability."

"We've had many concurrency issues with it, particularly with applications that do a lot of parallel processing. We noticed that sometimes the Azure SQL databases would spike and peak their CPU units, causing some performance issues for us. It would be helpful if CPU performance were not pinned to the amount of storage you're using, and we could scale different properties of the Azure SQL database independently."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

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

"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."

"The pricing is very much an important factor as to why we use this solution."

"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."

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

"The pricing is flexible and can be adapted based on our requirements but the pricing options are complex especially if we are using a VM."

"I would like it to be cheaper, but comparatively, it is reasonably priced."

"The price in general of Azure SQL could improve."

"The pricing is actually complicated, and that is probably one downside of it. In some respects, although we can plan for the costs on a month-by-month basis, we are finding it hard to project our costings for it. Fundamentally, Microsoft is offering two pricing models, and it is challenging to understand the differences between the two. We're basically on the DTU model at the moment. That may change in the future as the size grows, but it is one of those things that we'll end up monitoring as we progress. At the moment, to get a reasonable response, generally, the price is a little high for us, but it is one of those things for which we know that we can do improvements on our code. So, it is not just the service that's the problem; it is some of the things that we need to do as well."

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

"The price could be slightly cheaper."

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

11%

Educational Organization

University

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing 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 14% 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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