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MariaDB vs Microsoft Azure HorizonDB comparison

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Executive Summary

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

MariaDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (9th)
Microsoft Azure HorizonDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
30th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (20th)
 

Featured Reviews

AB
Co-Founder at Vsigma IT Labs Pvt Ltd
Has supported web application data needs but requires design adjustments to manage complex queries efficiently
Complex queries in MariaDB where the query needs to parse thousands of lines or data values face some performance issues. For small and medium-size volume, it is pretty good. If it goes beyond certain data and complex queries, we see performance issues. We tried the advanced replication feature between different regions, replicating data specifically residing on MariaDB to two different regions of MariaDB data, and there were some technical snags in terms of slowness and longer processing time. Point-in-time recovery in MariaDB is good for small databases. When data volume increases beyond 5 GB or 10 GB per day or runs into double-digit GBs, we found some performance issues. For data below 10 GB, it works fine. Performance is the primary focus area for MariaDB, particularly during transactions or complex query jobs where slow performance is observed. MariaDB is scalable and easy to scale.
Alex Park - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP - Business Analysis - FX Options at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Data platform has transformed analytics and now provides seamless storage and insight on user behavior
Microsoft Azure HorizonDB scales perfectly. It automatically scales whenever there is a load on the application. I have configured the deployment files on my projects, and the database is able to handle automatic scaling by itself, so I do not have to put much attention on that aspect. It scales down automatically as well. I monitored the scaling and scaling out one or two times during the initial stage when I was first including this database in my project. After the first and second times, I checked only the logs for automatic scaling and scaling out. I have not encountered any issue on the scaling side, and it provides consistent performance for both scaling and scaling out.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You get the performance, you get the security, and you get monitoring and disaster recovery."
"It's open source."
"Installation is straightforward."
"MariaDB is easy to install and is stable and scalable."
"The product is easy to use and not hard to learn, therefore, when someone asks me for a good DB to use, then I tell them about MariaDB."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is a cloud-based tool, so it is pretty fast."
"There are no problems with MariaDB and it works fine."
"The solution is stable and the performance is good."
"Since we are in the proof of concept phase, we have noticed some early improvements and potential benefits that stand out so far in terms of speed, reliability, and ease of management."
"Using Microsoft Azure HorizonDB provides better scalability and performance in terms of database administration."
"I appreciate the features that Microsoft Azure HorizonDB provides, particularly the seamless transformation of the database, data collection, and database access along with the analytics features."
"Microsoft Azure HorizonDB has positively impacted my organization by reducing latency issues, improving performance, and providing a good recovery time."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of security."
"There could be a command-line prompt for repairing the database and fixing indexes, similar to what was available in the old MyISAM storage engine."
"Document caching is an area of concern in the product, where improvements are required to help MariaDB improve on the previous queries as they are retained, and you can roll back to them."
"The dashboard and pricing need improvement."
"Master-master replication is something that needs to be simplified."
"The difficult part related to the product stems not from the tool itself but is related to learning how to implement the product in the right way without creating any wrong configuration that could cause security issues or performance issues."
"MariaDB doesn't handle long or complex SQL queries quite as well as Oracle Database."
"It should work across all fields like SQLite, as it is the basis of any application, even apps for phones and the like."
"One area I can identify for improvement is query performance during peak traffic situations."
"I want to say that the costing of Microsoft Azure HorizonDB is too high and should be less."
"So far, I have not seen any return on investment from Microsoft Azure HorizonDB in terms of cost."
"Regarding needed improvements, I feel that we need more documentation on Microsoft Azure HorizonDB."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is quite good. You can have the open source, free version, which has adequate capacity."
"There is a monthly subscription to use MariaDB."
"We pay for a yearly license."
"MariaDB is a free-to-use solution."
"The price could be less expensive."
"The licensing cost is approximately $4000.00 per year and the licensing is based on the software and the number of posts that you make."
"I used the open-source version, which is available free of charge."
"The price of this solution represents a very good compromise between the cost and what it offers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
MariaDB is in the pricey range, especially for huge databases handling terabytes of data. The cost depends on the volume of data and different features enabled during configuration, such as backup ...
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The key area where MariaDB could be improved is its native GUI tooling; while the command-line interface works perfectly fine, the built-in visual tools for administration, management, and query de...
What is your primary use case for MariaDB?
My main use case for MariaDB was web applications, and I have been using MariaDB for just about a year now as I was in the development team. A specific web application where I used MariaDB is a hea...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB is that the pricing is good.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure HorizonDB?
Improvements for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB mean that we still have not gotten actual usage of real issues. We just started the proof of concept phase, so we might discover what the exact real issue...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB?
My main use case for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB is that we were experiencing performance issues in Azure PostgreSQL flexible server, so we wanted to eliminate those issues and started using Microsof...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about MariaDB vs. Microsoft Azure HorizonDB and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.