Oracle MySQL Cloud Service vs SQL Server comparison

Oracle and Microsoft are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. Oracle is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.6, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1. Oracle holds a 0.9% mindshare in SQL, compared to Microsoft’s 12.1% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Oracle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

Read 21 Oracle MySQL Cloud Service reviews

695 Views
382 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

SQL Server

Read 272 SQL Server reviews

10,925 Views
9,505 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

SQL Server

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

SQL Server and Oracle MySQL Cloud Service compete in the database management systems category. SQL Server appears to have an edge due to its robust feature set, expansive tooling, and community support, although MySQL's open-source nature offers flexibility and cost advantages.

Features: SQL Server is well-equipped with dynamic resource allocation, a Graphical Query Analyzer, and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), enhancing its performance. Users value its comprehensive toolset, scalability, and strong community support. Oracle MySQL Cloud Service is appreciated for its open-source flexibility, ease of integration with data, and effective handling of large-scale applications.

Room for Improvement: SQL Server faces challenges with its high cost and complex licensing, deterring some SMBs. Users also report installation challenges on non-Windows platforms and a need for better integration of features. MySQL requires user interface enhancements and more advanced features like clustering and replication to improve ease of use and scalability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SQL Server is recognized for strong support across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid platforms, though its technical support can be slow and expensive. MySQL's customer service is well-rated, and its simplicity in cloud deployment makes it an attractive option for developers seeking straightforward integration.

Pricing and ROI: SQL Server is often criticized for its high cost and complex licensing, especially for the enterprise edition. Nevertheless, its rich feature set and support justify the investment, offering a favorable ROI. MySQL benefits from being open-source, reducing costs but potentially lacking extensive out-of-the-box functionality, which might affect ROI for users looking for more comprehensive services.

To learn more, read our detailed Oracle MySQL Cloud Service vs. SQL Server Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service vs. SQL Server

December 2025

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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

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

15th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Open Source Databases (11th)

SQL Server

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

272

Ranking in other categories

Database Management Systems (DBMS) (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Oracle MySQL Cloud Service is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 12.1%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SQL Server	12.1%
Oracle MySQL Cloud Service	0.9%
Other	87.0%

Relational Databases Tools

Featured Reviews

Roberto Stern

Director at Adamos Tecnologia

Efficiently manages extensive datasets with rapid connections and wide tool support

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service is easy to manage and install. It does not require a DBA for management. The connections are very fast and it supports several thousand users simultaneously without any issues. New connections do not hang server operations. As soon as new releases are put out, they work as expected. Oracle MySQL Cloud Service is supported by every vendor and tool, including architectural, integration, and generation tools, offering wide protocol support. This makes Oracle MySQL Cloud Service a valuable solution.

Read full review

Peter Larsson

Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)

Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads

SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.

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

"The stability of the solution is very good. I wouldn't have used it for the past seven years if I was not satisfied."

"The access to a suite of management and administration tools that simplify tasks such as database provisioning, configuration, and monitoring."

"Oracle MySQL Cloud Service is easy to use and implement."

"MySQL is very stable and works beautifully with large amounts of data."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"It is very easy to start working with the product."

"The scalability of the database is absolutely guaranteed by the new features."

"The product is good for tuning."

More Oracle MySQL Cloud Service pros

"The solution is stable."

"We have found the solution valuable because we are able to easily create a query, shrink, backup, and make new tables."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"SQL Server is similar to other Microsoft products, such as BI, they are easy to use. You do not need to have an expensive BD to maintain them. All the useful intuitive features you find in Microsoft solutions you will find in SQL Server."

"The management studio is probably the thing we use the most for running quick queries and creating quick reports. Quite often, somebody comes and says, "Hey, can you find XYZ?" It is so much easier just to jump in there and run a quick query."

"The solution has a reliable database."

"The initial setup is time-efficient and can be done independently."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that we can set up redundant databases and replication in the databases."

More SQL Server pros

Cons

"Sometimes MySQL does upgrades on the server. When we are still using the old server and when they integrate the upgrade, they don't carry along some of the old syntaxes. The versions don't sync."

"Integrating business intelligence or NLP solutions would help us save time and would prevent us from having to take a deep dive. Data problems seem to multiply on the system when you interact with it. Automation would save a lot of man-hours."

"MySQL should have some kind of native query browser. If it could come with a built-in connector."

"Oracle MySQL Cloud Service should be easier to replicate and integrate into further solutions."

"There could be improvements, particularly in Firebird, where the indexing is limited to just a single B-tree index, leading to poor performance for large-scale queries."

"There could be more courses where the people could learn more easily how to use the tool."

"The technical support is in need of improvement."

"It requires a significant amount of expertise and effort to manage, especially when dealing with substantial volumes of data."

More Oracle MySQL Cloud Service cons

"SQL could be improved by making all features available on the on-premise version of the product as well as the cloud version. When you buy the on-premise version, it's sort of an inferior product compared to the cloud version, which seems to get most of the latest and greatest features."

"The GUI needs improvement. From a technical perspective, it's quite complex, which may not be a problem for individuals with technical backgrounds like ours, especially since we've encountered similar interfaces. However, navigating the GUI can be challenging for newcomers or product owners without technical experience. For example, as someone transitioning from a developer role to a product management role, I find it relatively easy to use the GUI. But for those without a technical background, it's much more challenging to grasp what's happening."

"The way SQL Server pivots data could be improved. For example, I would like built-in comma-separated pivot and unpivot functions."

"I would like to have more replication scenarios."

"The performance could improve."

"The product overall would benefit from the addition of better tutorials to help master the skills necessary to actually build a project database. Right now, what is available isn't sufficient."

"The solution could be more secure."

"More things in SQL Server need to be automated."

More SQL Server cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an open-source product."

"Oracle has a better licensing model compared to its competitors."

"The license is expensive."

"The solution’s paid plans are expensive."

"The product is free since it is an open-source tool."

"The product is expensive."

"While the core solution itself is not exorbitant, the support services are associated with a significant maintenance fee, often ranging from twenty to thirty percent."

"The SQL server is affordable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"I would rate the tool's pricing a six out of ten. It is not extremely cheap but also it's not the most expensive product."

"Its licensing is yearly. There are no additional costs. There is only the subscription license."

"Historically, SQL Server has been much more affordable than Oracle, which is overpriced."

"Cost is a major derivative for any organization. It has a reasonable cost value, and its cloud support is also better than others. Comparatively, Oracle can do the same things or is even better in certain areas, but it is expensive. The cost along with the support are the plus factors for SQL Server."

"Although it comes with a cost, using the most recent version is highly advisable, since it would ensure a certain measure of bug fixes and stability. The sole issue would involve the cost, as this is expensive."

"The price of the solution could be cheaper."

"This is a very cheap product."

More SQL Server pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

39%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	11

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	119
Midsize Enterprise	59
Large Enterprise	115

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Oracle MySQL Cloud Service?

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service handles data easily.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle MySQL Cloud Service?

I have never paid for the full version of Oracle MySQL Cloud Service. We use the free version or the version available in RDS ( /products/amazon-rds-reviews ) from AWS ( /products/amazon-aws-review...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Oracle MySQL Cloud Service?

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service should be easier to replicate and integrate into further solutions. Although it targets Linux and UNIX environments, its performance is not as optimized on Windows platfo...

See all answers

Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?

SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...

See all answers

Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?

SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...

See all answers

Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?

My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon Aurora vs Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

Compared 18% of the time

Firebird SQL vs Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

Compared 14% of the time

PostgreSQL vs Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

Compared 13% of the time

MariaDB vs Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

Compared 12% of the time

Percona Server vs Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

Compared 12% of the time

More Oracle MySQL Cloud Service Competitors

IBM Db2 Database vs SQL Server

Compared 19% of the time

Oracle Database vs SQL Server

Compared 12% of the time

SAP HANA vs SQL Server

Compared 9% of the time

MariaDB vs SQL Server

Compared 9% of the time

MySQL vs SQL Server

Compared 5% of the time

More SQL Server Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service

January 2026

Download Oracle MySQL Cloud Service product report

Buyer's Guide

SQL Server

January 2026

Download SQL Server product report

Also Known As

No data available

Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL

Overview

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service delivers a secure, cost-effective and enterprise-grade MySQL database service. Built on MySQL Enterprise Edition and powered by the Oracle Cloud, it provides a simple, automated, integrated and enterprise ready MySQL cloud service, enabling organizations to increase business agility and reduce costs.

Oracle

SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) by Microsoft. The product's main purposes are to store data and retrieve it as requested by other software applications - on the same computer or on another computer across a shared network. The solution is built on top of Structured Query Language (SQL), which is a standardized programming language used for relational database management.

The product is tied to Transact-SQL (T-SQL), which is an implementation of SQL from Microsoft that adds several proprietary programming extensions to the standard language. SQL Server is built similarly to other RDBMS products, as its structure is a row-based table that connects related data elements in different tables to one another. One of its most important components is the SQL Server Database Engine, as it controls data processing, storage, and security. Beneath the Database Engine is the SQL Server Operating System, which is used for memory and I/O management, locking data to avoid unneeded upgrades, and job scheduling.

The solution has four editions with different sets of services and tools. They include:

SQL Server Developer
SQL Server Expression
SQL Server Standard
SQL Server Enterprise

The first two are available for free and are typically utilized by smaller companies, as they work with fewer functions and storage. The second two editions are generally used by bigger organizations and enterprises and offer more features.

The solution has several functions through which users can facilitate different data-related processes. These include:

Aggregate functions: These functions are used to calculate one or more values and return a single value.
Window functions: Window functions calculate an aggregate value based on a group of rows and return multiple rows for each involved group.
Date functions: These functions allow clients to handle data and time data efficiently.
String functions: Through the string functions, SQL Server processes an input string and returns a string or numeric value.
System functions: The system functions of the product return objects, values, and settings.

SQL Server Services

SQL Server has a wide range of add-on services that provide additional benefits beyond database management. These services include:

Machine learning: SQL Server machine learning services allow users to do machine learning and data analytics within the product.
Service broker: This feature is a part of the database engine and offers messaging and message queuing for applications on the platform.
Replication: This feature consists of transaction replication, merge replication, and snapshot replication.
Analysis: SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) adds online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining capabilities to SQL Server databases.
Reporting: This feature supports the development of custom reporting applications.
Notifications: This feature generates data-driven notifications which are sent to subscribers of Notification Services.
Integration: This SQL Server feature provides capabilities for data integration, data import, and data warehousing.
Full-text search: Through this feature, users can utilize specialized indexing and query for unstructured text stored in the solution.
Visual studio: This feature supports data programming with SQL Server.
Azure Data Studio: This is a cross-platform query editor that can be downloaded and used alongside SQL Server.

SQL Server Benefits

The solution has many benefits for users. These include the following:

The platform ensures a consistent experience across other platforms while being fast and agile.
Through the built-in intelligence features, users can understand their data better.
The solution has enterprise-level security, which ensures the smooth and safe performance of users' data.
SQL Server offers the ability to retrieve large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
The product installation process is fairly easy, and it offers a user-friendly interface.
SQL Server offers improved data storage and retrieval functions through frequent upgrades.
The solution reduces the risk of database server attacks, since it is not an open-source database.

Reviews from Real Users

A president at a consultancy evaluates SQL Server as a veteran solution with critical log shipping feature.

Harkamal S., a user at a manufacturing company, rates SQL Server with a high mark because it is a stable, scalable, and easy-to-deploy solution that pretty much covers everything.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Omnis, Naveex, Rehash Technologies

Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.

Buyer's Guide

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service vs. SQL Server

December 2025

Free Report: Oracle MySQL Cloud Service vs. SQL Server

Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle MySQL Cloud Service vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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