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Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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
23
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
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database10.7%
Google Cloud SQL7.8%
Other81.5%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

VD
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.
Thomas Sawyer - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 is highly scalable."
"The valuable feature of Google Cloud SQL is its high availability option. The product is stable."
"Ease of management and the ability to oversee the statistics of your SQL."
"It's SQL. SQL is so easy if you know something about databases. It's easy to learn."
"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."
"My suggestion to anyone thinking about this solution is to jump into it head-first!"
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Google Cloud SQL is easy to start with and allows me to scale as needed, which is advantageous from a developer perspective."
"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is integrated into other Azure capabilities and has a great foundation being on SQL Server with a long history of security, performance, and usability from a DBA perspective."
"What is really helpful about the Azure SQL is that when we have a problem with our sound queries, we can trade information about what indexes we should create on tables. It's really helpful for me and also for developers."
"Microsoft is at the forefront of databases, and everyone uses SQL."
"The reason we moved to the cloud was for the convenience of not having any physical hardware to maintain."
"The backup solution in Azure is great, the firewall settings in SQL are very easy to use and work very well. Additionally, the turning process is very good and has improved the SQL services and queries."
"Transitioning from a traditional on-premise SQL database to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is beneficial because features such as auto-indexing allow us to scale during peak seasons and scale back on demand, which is very useful for handling our spiky peak traffic based on seasonal factors, avoiding the need to purchase more hardware as required with traditional setups."
"The compatibility with SQL Server for transitioning legacy systems to Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very important because it gives us assurance that what we experience today, we can get the same performance on the other side."
"Our migration to Azure for most databases has increased our organization's efficiency and reduced the maintenance required to manage on-premises infrastructure."
 

Cons

"I would like to see better availability of the product in different regions. It should also improve the security with encryption."
"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."
"For data analysis, the AI area of the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The monitoring part could be better."
"The purging of the data could be better."
"The customer support should be improved."
"Google Cloud SQL still needs better connectivity to outside, existing data sources."
"It is hard to do logging with the solution."
"There are certain shortcomings when it comes to the stability of the product, especially if I consider the fact that there can always be some bug-related issues in the tool."
"The product could be more competitive in terms of features, security, and scalability."
"It's very difficult to investigate if something wrong is going on behind the scenes. If we are facing a problem that our application is doing a CPU spike and when we look at the dump of the details, the processes that our application is generating are not consuming more than 40-50% of CPU. But we don’t know where it is going, who's generating it, and who's consuming the CPU. Even Microsoft says they don’t know."
"It can have more dashboards for monitoring, which would naturally help a lot. Other than that, everything is okay."
"We've had many concurrency issues with it, particularly with applications that do a lot of parallel processing."
"The document storage is primarily relational, which is not ideally suited for SQL. If there were better integration with SharePoint for document handling in SQL, it would greatly benefit the organization. Moreover, the current on-premise limitations prevent direct file pulling, limiting certain capabilities."
"There are compatibility issues that prevent Azure SQL Database from being a direct replacement for SQL Server running on a virtual machine."
"Support isn't that great. They need to work on this aspect of their service. It can be challenging to reach them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"From a financial perspective, Google Cloud SQL is on the cheaper side."
"It is not expensive, especially considering the significant reduction in database management time."
"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."
"The pricing is very much an important factor as to why we use this solution."
"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 license is based on the number of users."
"We pay less than $1000 monthly in licensing fees. There are no additional costs."
"When you go with SQL Azure Database, you can create a small database, which is around $4 to $5 per month for development purposes."
"It is expensive. Snowflake and PostgreSQL are cheaper than this. Google is also cheaper than Azure. Its licensing is on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is based on usage and storage."
"It only has a subscription-based license."
"It is quite expensive. I would definitely recommend not using the pay-as-you-go model because this will just mean all your money will go to Microsoft. So, really make sure to control resource usage as much as possible."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"Microsoft services are costly, which is the only problem we face. So, pricing is an area of improvement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud SQL?
The implementation part of the product was easy.
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?
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...
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.
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...
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 ...
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud SQL vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,260 professionals have used our research since 2012.