Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer comparison

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

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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

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

117

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Cus...

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 15.9%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer is 3.9%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

Charley Hanania

Data Platform Specialist at QS2 AG - Quality Software Solutions

It is very easy to implement, manage, and offers great insights into what is happening inside the engine

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. Once you've set up a server, adding databases is easy. There's a minor challenge with having data in separate databases that you want to connect like we do on premises. I'm looking forward to using some of these new AI-driven functions that have come out around vectorization. Having the data closer to my transactional databases or data makes it easy to augment and enhance the Database and applications I currently use. It's great that Azure SQL now seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Fabric. It's a first-tier service in the cloud that connects to web applications and other databases. The data transformation orchestration capabilities within Database Factory and similar capabilities make it effortless to move that stuff forward.

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RODRIGOPETERSON

Senior Architect at Capgemini

Leverages cloud capabilities and offers minimal latency with operation model

Customers have less operational burden and more responsibility regarding the management of hardware. Increasing the scale of Oracle Exadata Cloud provides more capacity, higher performance, and expanded storage, CPU, and memory resources. If you need to scale Oracle's capacity up or down, the appliance can be adjusted on-premise. When you purchase Oracle Exadata Cloud, you must acquire either a half or full rack. If you need to increase capacity, you can scale up by adding more hardware. This hardware commitment lasts four to five years, meaning you must maintain this infrastructure and continue payments for that period. While you can scale up to meet increased demands, scaling down is more challenging. I recommend the solution when the customer desires to transition to a cloud-native solution but needs to retain their data in OpenEdge due to compatibility issues or the requirement to interact with on-premise systems to minimize latency. This solution offers minimal latency and modernizes Oracle capabilities through a gateway. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is quire more stable than other tools."

"The most valuable aspect of SQL Azure is the SQL language itself. It's open and everybody can use it at my company. Also, we thought in the beginning that the response time would be inadequate, but it's actually decent. It's much better than expected. Then again, I'm not a programmer, but that's what I hear from our development team."

"The ease of scaling the server up and down by simply pressing a few buttons in a dropdown menu has made our lives significantly more comfortable, especially as we aim to process more data this year by utilizing the cloud."

"It has significantly streamlined our disaster recovery plans, making it much more straightforward to spin up new instances as opposed to setting up a new VM with all necessary packages. The normal cost of our VMs with storage has been significantly reduced."

"Azure SQL Database has significantly reduced our total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for managing physical infrastructure, including data warehouses and data centers."

"I rate Microsoft Azure SQL Database 10 out of 10."

"The SQL connector effectively syncs data to our database."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database scales well, allowing us to increase our compute level or add more instances as required."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

"The operation model is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature is that it is based on Exadata infrastructure, which is Oracle 's leading engineered system that is trusted, fault-tolerant, and has unique performance features."

"Exporting and importing is easy because of its cleanliness, making the process easier. However, setting up the Data Guard was more difficult. Despite this, the client experienced lower downtime."

"I am particularly fond of the intelligent capabilities that enhance the backend, utilizing technology to analyze SQL queries."

"Performance has significantly improved."

"I like that Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer is a stable, well-positioned product in the market today, and it's very scalable."

Cons

"The solution lacks feedback tools."

"Service Broker should be added in Azure Cloud. Service Broker is currently available only in the on-premises version."

"The solution could be less expensive. They need to work on their pricing model."

"It does take some time to learn about the environment."

"There could be more collaboration with other tools like Data Factory and Databricks."

"One area for improvement is data virtualization. Companies use different data sources, creating a separate data virtualization layer, and there are more data sources behind that layer. For example, we have different data layers for Excel, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc. Creating a data virtualization layer would help because you retain the metadata of your source data."

"Its compatibility with existing applications can be improved. Its compatibility is currently a little bit imbalanced."

"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of better self-service tools."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

"Scalability is not straightforward."

"For the data migration, we used ZDM. It was not integrated with the databases, and the documentation lacks clarity."

"We had some problems in the developer's environment. We had some problems with the initial installation environment."

"The solution is expensive."

"As a customer, you can't see the boot messages of your virtualized guest machines."

"A room for improvement in Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer is that they need to train more partners to gain more knowledge because currently, they are keeping a lot to themselves. For example, they are still keeping a lot of information on their campus, so information sharing is limited."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have an annual spend number, and it is in the hundred thousand dollar range. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees. Even though you have to look at the cost numbers of what you're going to be charged on a monthly basis, what you have to also remember is that your application may need a lot of rewriting and things like that. You get charged not just for the monthly costs but also for the transactions that occur. If your access to the data layer is not so efficient, your costs will go up because you're pulling far more data than you potentially need. These are hidden costs that nobody ever considers. If your application is not written very efficiently, you may actually increase your costs over on-prem versus cloud."

"The solution is more cost-effective than Google BigQuery. Compared to Google BigQuery, downloading data can be more expensive."

"SQL Azure's licensing cost is expensive."

"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."

"The license is based on the number of users."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"It is expensive for us. We are looking for something less expensive and thinking of migrating the whole system."

"Offers options for paying the license on a yearly or a monthly basis."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

"The machine and the cloud model itself already have licensing advantages."

"The price is too much."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

72%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

36%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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?

The pricing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap, affecting user uptake. A gradual reduction in price could improve accessibility and user numbers, making it easier for users to adopt the s...

What needs improvement with SQL Azure?

Pricing could be improved to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database ( /products/microsoft-azure-sql-database-reviews ) more accessible. A reduction in price might encourage more users and bring more pro...

What do you like most about Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer?

Exporting and importing is easy because of its cleanliness, making the process easier. However, setting up the Data Guard was more difficult. Despite this, the client experienced lower downtime.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer?

The pricing is reasonable due to a universal agreement, which often positions Oracle solutions better against others. I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten.

What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer?

Scalability is not straightforward, as you can scale up and not down. Improvements could be made to make scalability more flexible.

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Comparisons

Compared 40% of the time

Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 26% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 8% of the time

vCloud Air vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Oracle Database as a Service vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 45% of the time

Amazon RDS vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 33% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 8% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 7% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 7% of the time

More Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database product report

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Download Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer product report

Overview

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

Oracle Cloud@Customer brings Oracle’s complete portfolio of public cloud infrastructure, fully managed cloud services, and Oracle Fusion SaaS applications into your data center. It enables you to run applications faster and lower your costs using the same high-performance capabilities, autonomous operations, and low-cost subscription pricing in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). You get all this while maintaining complete control of your data so you can address data residency, security, and connectivity concerns.

Oracle

Sample Customers

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH

IBVI, illycaffe, Scottish Water, trueblue, AirAsia, droptank

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer