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Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service comparison

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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

Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
142
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle Exadata Express Clou...
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 9.0%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is 2.1%, up from 1.3% 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 Database9.0%
Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service2.1%
Other88.9%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Matthew Parker - PeerSpot reviewer
Ai Team Lead at Phoenix Software
Integrates with familiar tools and supports reliable data storage for AI applications
Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved overall by being able to compete with some of the features that come from things such as PostgreSQL. From my team's perspective in terms of building AI applications, more native integrations with some of the newer AI data types, such as vectors for storing embeddings, would be beneficial. I think all of that is coming. It is just a big product, so I think it is naturally a little bit behind the curve. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing because a lot of customers, because it has been around for so long, they trust it and they are willing to wait until those features become available.
Shrikant Navelkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Clover Infotech
Have achieved excellent performance and seamless integration with effective cost control in cloud solutions
When customers are migrating from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service and need to remove some of their test and development environment, what happens in normal virtualization is that they can just switch it off, but in ExaCS, they need to terminate the entire thing. Most of the customers are not aware of this, so they keep spending money even if they want to shut down their UAT environment or development environment, so Oracle needs to make it simpler in terms of reducing the bill on ExaCS when customers want to shut down certain environments. Today, you have to terminate the entire VM, and only then your billing will stop. The only functionality I would expect from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is that if Oracle is able to support Oracle MySQL Enterprise also on Exadata, that will solve a lot of problems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The data availability and speed are impressive, especially compared to legacy systems. The loading speeds are much faster on Azure SQL."
"Azure SQL Database is very quick and easy to use."
"The feature I like the most about Microsoft Azure SQL Database is the scaling part."
"The dashboard is valuable."
"Microsoft is very efficient and forward-looking, making it less expensive to build the setup for Azure SQL."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is its accessibility."
"Microsoft's expertise in SQL Server is a significant advantage."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We did not migrate from an existing system but implemented it from scratch and did not require Microsoft support. We were building Power Platform apps using SharePoint databases and Excel. And after that, we realized that we had to integrate it with SQL. It wasn't too hard, and our partners have people with experience."
"One of the most valuable parts of the solution is the high availability within the system and the performance enhancement without making any changes or fine-tuning the databases."
"The performance of the tool is valuable."
"In the cloud, Exadata is more scalable. The on-prem version was limited. It wasn't that scalable because it only came in a quarter rack, half rack, and full rack. In the cloud, it scales to what you need."
"With this cloud service, a development team can get a database immediately, without long negotiation with other services."
"Exadata is a highly stable and mature solution."
"The solution is very stable and offers great performance."
"It is a scalable product."
"I highly recommend Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service as a very good solution if you can afford it."
 

Cons

"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."
"Scalability is an issue because we can't upgrade to new versions due to hardware limitations."
"The underlying Windows OS is highly scalable but has a very large resource requirement."
"Pricing could be improved to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database more accessible."
"Some issues with scalability."
"The only problem we have with Azure is regarding the price."
"Although the solution integrates well into Azure’s ecosystem, it has limited capability and is incompatible with many third-party applications or tools."
"We haven't had any major issues that have prevented us from doing stuff fundamentally. For its implementation, sometimes, it is complicated to understand what your needs are. It would be good to have a few use cases that provide different cloud variations that match on-premise installations and show how they can be moved to the cloud a bit better."
"I feel there is a need for better integration with Google Maps and Google Earth. This is crucial for me in the geographical facilities of the environment."
"Oracle's support could be better."
"The product's installation process needs improvement. It could be more accessible."
"The support must be faster."
"We use artificial intelligence for deep learning, and it would be a huge benefit to implement this in Oracle Exadata."
"The customer's default choice is the on-premise version of this solution. Oracle needs to market the cloud version better."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
"The customer's default choice is the on-premise version of this solution. Only when Oracle or the partners like us, can explain to customers the cloud value proposition, and if the compliance authorities allow, they can look into this cloud solution. It will take some time for Oracle to change its perception of customers' de-facto standards. Exadata used to be treated as a black box, which is not the case now. The customer is aware of what is happening inside, how the configurations have been made, and what patching has been applied. Oracle needs to market the cloud version better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It requires a license. As compared to its competitors, such as Oracle, it is affordable and reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"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 reasonable."
"Offers options for paying the license on a yearly or a monthly basis."
"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."
"SQL Azure is an expensive solution."
"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 price of this solution is very comparative to others on the market. There is no direct comparison between this solution and with something else because I do not see any other similar product."
"The tool is not cheap, but it is not really expensive."
"I think Oracle pricing is usually above average market price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Recruiting/Hr Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise68
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SQL Azure?
I think Microsoft Azure SQL Database is affordable, not expensive. Regarding migration, I am just keeping a professional service charge for that.
What needs improvement with SQL Azure?
The automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database impacts database performance sometimes. What happens with Microsoft Azure SQL Database's automatic tuning is that when SQL queries are e...
What is your primary use case for SQL Azure?
I am a system integrator using Microsoft Azure SQL Database for my customers. The major use case for Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that most of my clients have a lot of applications, so they are ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
Oracle is quite expensive here in Brazil. Pricing is the primary challenge we face with Oracle.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
When customers are migrating from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service and need to remove some of their test and development environment, what happens in normal virtualization is that they can just...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
We have been implementing Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service for our customers for more than 10 to 12 years for our various customers through the on-premise Exadata offerings Oracle has.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
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