Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service comparison

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Download the complete report

Helped 884,797 peers since 2012

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

6.9

Number of Reviews

134

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Exadata Express Clou...

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 10.5%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is 1.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database	10.5%
Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service	1.5%
Other	88.0%

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

Thomas Sawyer

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.

Read full review

Shrikant Navelkar

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SQL is easy to use and easily integrates with many systems. There aren't many code changes needed when you're using SQL databases. Integrating Azure SQL with other Microsoft applications is instant because they're all Microsoft solutions."

"The feature I like the most about Microsoft Azure SQL Database is the scaling part."

"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."

"Valuable features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database include its quick deployment capabilities, the ability to spin up an environment easily, and seamless integration with Microsoft products."

"I am very happy with this solution; right now, I don't think there is anything I would change."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database's ability to segregate read-write operations helps me manage my application and workloads effectively."

"The feature I like the most about Microsoft Azure SQL Database is that it's a managed service, which is the main reason we use it, as a global enterprise we used to spend a lot of time maintaining SQL Server and SQL Databases, and using Azure SQL allows us to leverage our people's comprehensive power to focus on more important tasks than just upgrading the SQL and doing maintenance."

"Our migration to Azure for most databases has increased our organization's efficiency and reduced the maintenance required to manage on-premises infrastructure."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

"Having the prediction happen in the modular format allows you to start with a lower version of Exadata and then you can keep on upgrading it as per your requirement."

"I like that Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is easier to use and is a cost-saving solution because you won't need to hire people to run and maintain it."

"I would rate Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service ten out of ten for its overall solution."

"It is a scalable product."

"The solution is very stable and offers great performance."

"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."

"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."

"I highly recommend Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service as a very good solution if you can afford it."

More Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service pros

Cons

"It's not a feature, but the solution only offers a certain amount of memory and that's limiting. The scalability should be extended to more than two terabytes."

"I would like to see more compatibility with SSMS and more backward compatibility with regular on-prem SQL."

"We've noticed an unexpected increase in the cost of running the server over the past few months."

"The preset configuration switches we can select on SQL Azure should be made more liberal to work on."

"The document storage is primarily relational, which is not ideally suited for SQL. If there were better integration with SharePoint for document handling in SQL, it would greatly benefit the organization. Moreover, the current on-premise limitations prevent direct file pulling, limiting certain capabilities."

"Certain features available commercially may not be applicable in our gov cloud."

"Some more documentation and suggestions for network policies could be helpful."

"The solution has to scale up its expertise for hosting Oracle."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

"The support must be faster."

"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."

"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. 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."

"Scaling Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service can be done, but the process is a little tedious, which could be an area for improvement in the solution."

"The solution's pricing could be improved."

"Oracle's support could be better."

"The product's installation process needs improvement. It could be more accessible."

More Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It is beneficial in terms of cost because you are charged per data unit instead of licensing."

"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."

"The price could be slightly cheaper."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

"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."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database as a Service (DBaaS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Marketing Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Recruiting/Hr Firm

13%

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	60
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	61

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	8

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?

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 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?

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.

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Comparisons

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 14% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 11% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Google Cloud SQL vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Compared 22% of the time

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Compared 18% of the time

Oracle Database Appliance vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Compared 15% of the time

Teradata vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Compared 9% of the time

More Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database product report

Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service

Download Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service product report

Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service 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 Database Exadata Express Cloud Service delivers a managed Oracle Database 12c Release 2 Enterprise Edition with options, running on Oracle Exadata engineered systems – all at a highly affordable entry-level price. It is a full Oracle Database experience, compatible with what you get on-premises or in other Oracle Database Cloud Services, provisioned within minutes, and suitable for small to medium sized data.

Oracle

Sample Customers

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

TAFEL LEIPZIG, AS ONE

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service