No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM Db2 on Cloud vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

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

IBM Db2 on Cloud
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 June 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of IBM Db2 on Cloud is 2.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 9.5%, down from 15.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database9.5%
IBM Db2 on Cloud2.1%
Other88.4%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

FM
Database Engineer at Meezan Bank
Multi-node architecture and it is good from a security point of view
I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. Most of the issues we faced during troubleshooting were due to specific bugs in the environment, and the only solution was to upgrade the database environment or services. But it is not easy to upgrade the database level when third-party applications are involved, as they are not always comfortable with upgrading. There should be some cumulative solution provided by IBM for their customers, just like other vendors. Upgrading to a certain version doesn't always resolve the issue. It might get resolved at the database level, but what about the other applications integrated with that database that are only compatible with older versions?
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

"Multiple business departments rely on reports and predictive analysis to make decisions for future business based on their data warehouse and Db2 network analytics tool. It helps our business department make decisions."
"The reliability is the most valuable feature. It is also user-friendly."
"The product is easy to set up."
"I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database 10 out of 10."
"The management and the remote access in SQL Azure are seamless."
"With these customers, we have managed to reduce a lot of infrastructure budgets and to provide an eco-friendly setup."
"Emergency mode is quite useful."
"The stability of the solution is very good."
"The scalability and simple management of the infrastructure are the most valuable features."
"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."
 

Cons

"Nobody is going to like the price."
"In other environments like Oracle or Teradata, they provide their own solutions for troubleshooting issues. They provide built-in AI services or autonomous databases, which I don't see in the Db2 environment."
"I would give their support a ten if they had more tutorials available."
"The concurrency between the amount of the transactional replications and the logging needs to be improved."
"SQL Azure's performance monitoring features need to be improved. It has a pricing calculator, but it would be great if we could get a rough estimate of the pricing based on fewer parameters, like the data size and the scale of the company."
"The solution could improve by supporting more operating systems."
"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."
"I think Microsoft Azure SQL Database should be cheaper. The license is expensive, but not always; it depends on the case regarding pricing and licensing."
"We've had many concurrency issues with it, particularly with applications that do a lot of parallel processing."
"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is one of those solutions that helps consolidate our infrastructure, though unfortunately it is not the only solution we use."
"One of the nice features in Microsoft SQL Server is the SQL Server CLR, which we sometimes need to use to protect our procedures using C# or CLR. This is not available in the SQL Azure database."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"I find that they are relatively expensive, especially when compared to AWS, where the prices are notably lower."
"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's reasonably priced and when you compare it with other products in the cloud environment, it's cheaper."
"I am not aware of the exact pricing, but our monthly bill for Azure is around 80,000. It is less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage."
"In terms of the cost, SQL Azure is a pay-per-use solution, particularly because it's a cloud subscription, so you pay as much as you use it."
"We have the licensing fee, and we are also paying a third party to maintain it with an SLA. There is no infrastructure cost, but its running costs are higher than expected. There is the cost of the Azure cloud, which is pricier than expected, but it is not specific to SQL Azure. It is specific to the cloud. You expect it to be cheaper, but it is more expensive to run it."
"It is expensive for us. We are looking for something less expensive and thinking of migrating the whole system."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database as a Service (DBaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Db2 on Cloud?
In other environments like Oracle or Teradata, they provide their own solutions for troubleshooting issues. They provide built-in AI services or autonomous databases, which I don't see in the Db2 e...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Db2 on Cloud?
Since I have worked with almost every product, including IBM, Teradata is far better than any other data warehouse product. It's a separate database with its own features, architecture, and working...
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 on Cloud?
It's a multi-node logical database clustered in three physical nodes. We use a lot of services already provided in our private cloud environment. It's a multi-node architecture.
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 ...
What is your primary use case for SQL Azure?
My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are third-party applications.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Owens-Illinois, KONE Corp., Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue, Canon Europe, Delhaize America, Wimbledon
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 on Cloud vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.