What users are saying about
Top Rated
120 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 9.1 out of 100
Based on 120 reviews and ratings
228 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.4 out of 100
Based on 228 reviews and ratings
Feature Set Ratings
NoSQL Databases
8.9
IBM Cloudant
89%
Azure SQL Database
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A
IBM Cloudant ranks higher in 7/7 features
IBM Cloudant ranks higher in 7/7 features
Performance
8.7
87%
18 Ratings
N/A
0 Ratings
Availability
9.1
91%
18 Ratings
N/A
0 Ratings
Concurrency
8.6
86%
18 Ratings
N/A
0 Ratings
Security
9.1
91%
18 Ratings
N/A
0 Ratings
Scalability
9.5
95%
18 Ratings
N/A
0 Ratings
Data model flexibility
7.5
75%
18 Ratings
N/A
0 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility
9.5
95%
18 Ratings
N/A
0 Ratings
Database-as-a-Service
IBM Cloudant
Feature Set Not Supported
N/A
9.0
Azure SQL Database
90%
Azure SQL Database ranks higher in 6/6 features
Azure SQL Database ranks higher in 6/6 features
Automatic software patching
N/A
0 Ratings
8.9
89%
26 Ratings
Database scalability
N/A
0 Ratings
9.4
94%
28 Ratings
Automated backups
N/A
0 Ratings
9.0
90%
28 Ratings
Database security provisions
N/A
0 Ratings
9.1
91%
28 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics
N/A
0 Ratings
8.6
86%
27 Ratings
Automatic host deployment
N/A
0 Ratings
9.1
91%
23 Ratings
Attribute Ratings
- IBM Cloudant is rated higher in 1 area: Likelihood to Recommend
- Azure SQL Database is rated higher in 2 areas: Likelihood to Renew, Support Rating
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
IBM Cloudant
91%
42 Ratings
8.6
Azure SQL Database
86%
28 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
IBM Cloudant
73%
1 Rating
8.0
Azure SQL Database
80%
1 Rating
Usability
7.7
IBM Cloudant
77%
5 Ratings
Azure SQL Database
N/A
0 Ratings
Availability
8.2
IBM Cloudant
82%
2 Ratings
Azure SQL Database
N/A
0 Ratings
Performance
8.2
IBM Cloudant
82%
2 Ratings
Azure SQL Database
N/A
0 Ratings
Support Rating
8.6
IBM Cloudant
86%
6 Ratings
9.0
Azure SQL Database
90%
10 Ratings
Online Training
7.3
IBM Cloudant
73%
2 Ratings
Azure SQL Database
N/A
0 Ratings
Implementation Rating
8.2
IBM Cloudant
82%
8 Ratings
Azure SQL Database
N/A
0 Ratings
Product Scalability
8.6
IBM Cloudant
86%
21 Ratings
Azure SQL Database
N/A
0 Ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Cloudant
Our organization found Cloudant most suitable if One, a fixed pricing structure would make the most sense, for example in a situation where the project Cloudant is being used in makes its revenue in procurement or fixed retainer — thus the predictability of costs is paramount; Two, where you need to frequently edit the data and/or share access to the query engine to non-engineers — this is where the GUI shines.

Verified User
General Manager in Engineering
Computer Software Company, 1-10 employeesAzure SQL Database
Your upcoming app can be built faster on a fully managed SQL database and can be moved into Azure with a few to no application code changes. Flexible and responsive server less computing and Hyperscale storage can cope with your changing requirements and one of the main benefits is the reduction in costs, which is noticeable.
IT Operations and Support Specialist
AZEREX LLC.Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees
Pros
IBM Cloudant
- For us, performance and scalability is the key, and Cloudant DB backed by CouchDB is scalable and performant.
- IBM Cloudant dB is very easy to provision for sandbox, development, QA as well as production.
- Support for Java for CouchDB app server analytics enables a greater control for over developers.
- Schema free oriented very easy to program and build applications on it.
- We love it!!
Director - Data and Analytics Services (Presales)
Miracle Software Systems, IncComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees
Azure SQL Database
- Maintenance is always an issue, so using a cloud solution saves a lot of trouble.
- On premise solutions always suffer from fragmented implementations here and there, where several "dba's" keep track of security and maintenance. With a cloud database it's much easier to keep a central overview.
- Security options in SQL database are next level... data masking, hiding sensitive data where always neglected on premise, whereas you'll get this automatically in the cloud.

Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology
Consumer Services Company, 501-1000 employeesCons
IBM Cloudant
- It was only after we went with the cloud-based solution that IBM rolled out an on-premise version.
- We found that a 3rd-party ODBC driver was required for a few applications that needed to pull data out of Cloudant.
- The sales process was difficult because the salesperson we used was not as versed on Cloudant as I had hoped.

Verified User
Analyst in Marketing
Retail Company, 51-200 employeesAzure SQL Database
- One needs to be aware that some T-SQL features are simply not available.
- The programmatic access to server, trace flags, hardware from within Azure SQL Database is taken away (for a good reason).
- No SQL Agent so your jobs need to be orchestrated differently.
- The maximum concurrent logins maybe an unexpected problem.
- Sudden disconnects.
- The developers and admin must study the capacity and tier usage limits https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-subscription-service-limits otherwise some errors or even transaction aborts never seen before can occur.
- Only one Latin Collation choice.
- There is no way to debug T-SQL ( a big drawback in my point of view).
Senior Data Platform Consultant
Generali Global Health ServicesInsurance, 5001-10,000 employees
Pricing Details
IBM Cloudant
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
$0 20 reads/second ; 10 writes/second ; 5 global queries / second ; 1 GB of storage capacity
IBM Cloudant Editions & Modules
Edition
Lite | Free1 |
---|---|
Standard | $752 |
Standard | Included3 |
Standard | $14 |
- 20 reads/second ; 10 writes/second ; 5 global queries / second ; 1 GB of storage capacity
- per month 100 reads/second ; 50 writes/second ; 5 global queries/second
- per month 20 GB of storage
- per month per GB of storage above the included 20 GB
Additional Pricing Details
—Azure SQL Database
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
$0.5,044 Per Hour
Azure SQL Database Editions & Modules
Edition
2 vCORE | $0.50441 |
---|---|
6 vCORE | $1.51311 |
10 vCORE | $2.521 |
- Per Hour
Additional Pricing Details
—Likelihood to Renew
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant 7.3
Based on 1 answer
the flexibility of NoSQL allow us to modify and upgrade our apps very fast and in a convenient way. Having the solution hosted by IBM is also giving us the chance to focus on features and the improvement of our apps. It's one thing less to be worried about
General Manager
SupermioComputer Software, 1-10 employees
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Database 8.0
Based on 1 answer
This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
Software Project Manager
Forman Christian CollegeInformation Technology and Services, 1001-5000 employees
Usability
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant 7.7
Based on 5 answers
It's mostly just a straight forward API to a data store. I knock one off for the full text search thing, but I don't need it much anyways. Also, the dashboard UI they give is pretty nice to use. It provides syntax-highlighting for writing views and queries are easy to test. I wish other DBs had a UI like this.
Developer
Qubit NetworksTelecommunications, 11-50 employees
Azure SQL Database
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant 8.2
Based on 2 answers
it is a highly available solution in the IBM cloud portfolio and hence we have never had any issues with the data base being available - we also do continuous replication to be on the safer side just in case some thing goes awry. We also perform twice a year disaster recovery tests.
customer service leader
ifoxComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees
Azure SQL Database
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Performance
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant 8.2
Based on 2 answers
very easy to get started and is very developer friendly given that it uses couchDB analytics. It is a cloud based solution and hence there is no hardware investment in a server and staging the server to get started and the associated delays/bureaucracy involved to get started. Good documentation is also available.
customer service leader
ifoxComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees
Azure SQL Database
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant 8.6
Based on 6 answers
Very happy by the commitment given by the team which has been really good over the last 7 years of usage.
VP of Engineering
AirFi / MI AirlineInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Database 9.0
Based on 10 answers
We give the support a high rating simply because every time we've had issues or questions, representatives were in contact with us quickly. Without fail, our issues/questions were handled in a timely matter. That kind of response is integral when client data integrity and availability is in question. There is also a wealth of documentation for resolving issues on your own.

Verified User
Team Lead in Other
Computer Software Company, 11-50 employeesOnline Training
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant 7.3
Based on 2 answers
online resources are good enough to understand but there is nothing like testing. In our case, we discovered some not documented behavior that we take in count now. Also, the experience in NodeJs is critical. Also, take in count that most of the "good practices" with cloudant are not in online courses but in blogs and pages from independent developers
General Manager
SupermioComputer Software, 1-10 employees
Azure SQL Database
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant 8.2
Based on 8 answers
- Test the architecture on CouchDB helped us to address initial design flaws.
- The migration to Cloudant as such was very painless.
- We have migrate our replication system to Cloudant Android Sync for mobile devices.
- We have regular informal contact with the Cloudant leadership to discuss our use cases and implementation strategies.
VP of Engineering
AirFi / MI AirlineInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Azure SQL Database
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
IBM Cloudant
The feature-set, including security, is very comparable. Overall, IBM's services added to the product are mature and stable, although product support and engineers could be a little better. Global availability is improving, and Disaster Recover Capabilities are great. Overall, it's very comparable to MongoDB as a DBaaS offer, available globally and with great documentation.

Verified User
Executive in Information Technology
Consumer Goods Company, 10,001+ employeesAzure SQL Database
We moved away from Oracle and NoSQL because we had been so reliant on them for the last 25 years, the pricing was too much and we were looking for a way to cut the cord. Snowflake is just too up in the air, feels like it is soon to be just another line item to add to your Azure subscription. Azure was just priced right, easy to migrate to and plenty of resources to hire to support/maintain it. Very easy to learn, too.

Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting
Consumer Goods Company, 10,001+ employeesScalability
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant 8.6
Based on 21 answers
The service scales incredibly well. As you would expect from CloudDB and IBM combination. The only reason I wouldn't score it a 10 is the fact that document trees can get nested and nested very quickly if you are attempting to do very complex datasets. Which makes your code that much more complex to deal. Its very possible we could find a solution to this problem with better database planning to begin with, but one of the reasons we chose a service over a self-hosted solution was so we could set it up quick and forget about it. So we weren't going to dedicate a team to architecture optimization.
CTO (Chief Technical Officer)
YukonBabyHospital & Health Care, 1-10 employees
Azure SQL Database
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
IBM Cloudant
- IBM Cloudant is very secure and we never have to worry about losing data/unauthorized access
- It is one of the best data backup system and works well
- Global availability means it is easy to connect to the nearest data center and this reduces load time which is great.
Information Technology Manager
Gorgeous Smiles DentalHospital & Health Care, 11-50 employees
Azure SQL Database
- Perfect for small and medium databases, being very cost effective.
- As a Platform as a Service, there is no concern about patches, upgrades and end of life.
- Be aware of security and network capabilities. The service cannot run in the VNET as Azure Virtual Machines do.

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Mining & Metals Company, 10,001+ employees