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Microsoft Azure HorizonDB vs MySQL 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

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)
MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Amandeep Pawar - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited
Careful data design has delivered consistent transactions and supports reliable microservices
MySQL is a reliable and mature relational database, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. One area is horizontal scalability. While MySQL supports scaling for applications, handling write-heavy workloads often requires additional solutions such as sharding, which adds complexity. Another area where it could improve is in native support for advanced analytics and large-scale distributed processing, which may require specialized databases. Changing the database schema on large tables can also be challenging and may require careful planning to minimize downtime. Performance tuning is powerful, but identifying and optimizing slow queries often requires manual analysis and experience. Having more built-in performance insights and automated optimization recommendations would be helpful for administrators. In terms of documentation and security, I think MySQL could be improved in those areas. While the official documentation is comprehensive, it can sometimes be difficult for beginners to navigate, especially for advanced topics such as application partitioning and query optimization. More practical examples and architecture-focused guides would be beneficial. On the integration side, MySQL already works well with frameworks such as Spring Boot and Hibernate, but enhancing support for modern cloud-native deployments, Kubernetes, and automated observability would simplify operations. MySQL is a mature and dependable database, and I hope to see improvements primarily around administration, better operational tooling, and a smoother developer experience rather than fundamental database capabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Using Microsoft Azure HorizonDB provides better scalability and performance in terms of database administration."
"Microsoft Azure HorizonDB has positively impacted my organization by reducing latency issues, improving performance, and providing a good recovery time."
"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."
"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."
"It has more than enough support available for our needs."
"This product is a good teaching tool for students who want to learn about networked databases."
"MySQL is a scalable tool. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...The solution's technical support is good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."
"MySQL is easy to use, has fast performance, and it is comfortable for end-user to use. The schema level and structure we are using are very simple and easy to understand. Additionally, packaging tool development is straightforward and the data is presented in a way that is very simple to understand."
"I am totally satisfied with MySQL, and I like its performance, ease of use, stability, and scalability."
"MySQL is an open-source product and has good community support. If you encounter any problem, you can easily ask other members of the community to help. They help you a lot. On top of being free, MySQL is a cross-platform database, meaning it can work on both Windows and Linux. It is very good for us."
"The one interesting thing about this product is that it is open source. It comes from an open source product. MySQL has been positioned as open source, but it also provides support."
"This product is valuable because it is used in production environments."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"I would like to have features that allow us to jump between the cloud and our on-premises system."
"Zero. No support at all. Only forums with no response."
"With time, we got version issues, as our DB engine was so old and not updated."
"The analytics features are in need of improvement. They aren't as far along as the capabilities that you have in terms of analytics for SQL Server and Oracle."
"Security in the data files needs manipulation."
"According to our experience, it's not really an enterprise tool that you can easily expand and scale the way you can with, for example, Oracle."
"The dynamic scalability, clustering, dynamic replicas safeguard against failures, ease of setup and use all need to be improved."
"We require more ease of use, scalability, and high availability. These are some of the critical features that we use and look for in a product. It should be easier to manage clusters. Scalability is very important for us because our projects and concurrency requirements are quite big. We also require high availability of the server, application, and other things. It should also have more performance-based features or enhancements from the performance point of view. When we divide a database, it should be able to handle the queries very fast."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I use the open-source free community version."
"For the on-premise version, no license is required."
"We've never bought a commercial license. We just use the open-source community edition."
"The tool is open source."
"We're using the open-source version right now, which is free. I do see some value in some of the more enterprise functions. We're using the open-source version right now, and I was interested in the MySQL Enterprise version really for the tools that they provide, but we decided not to make the purchase."
"It is an open source platform."
"I am using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
"There is a licensing cost because we are going for a proprietary product. There are some other versions for which there is no licensing cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise64
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
 

Comparisons

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Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure HorizonDB vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.