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Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data vs. Google Cloud SQL

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AAstra DB is a vector database for developers. In 2025 Datastax, the developer and supporter of Astra DB, was acquired. Astra DB is now available as a component of the IBM watsonx.data Multicloud offering.N/A

    Google Cloud SQL

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Cloud SQL is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) with the capability and functionality of MySQL.

    $0

    per core hour

    Pricing
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataGoogle Cloud SQL
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    License - Express
    $0
    per core hour
    License - Web
    $0.01134
    per core hour
    Storage - for backups
    $.08
    per month per GB
    HA Storage - for backups
    $.08
    per month per GB
    Storage - HDD storage capacity
    $.09
    per month per GB
    License - Standard
    $0.13
    per core hour
    Storage - SSD storage capacity
    $.17
    per month per GB
    HA Storage - HDD storage capacity
    $.18
    per month per GB
    HA Storage - SSD storage capacity
    $.34
    per month per GB
    License - Enterprise
    $0.47
    per core hour
    Memory
    $5.11
    per month per GB
    HA Memory
    $10.22
    per month per GB
    vCPUs
    $30.15
    per month per vCPU
    HA vCPUs
    $60.30
    per month per vCPU
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataGoogle Cloud SQL
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Pricing varies with editions, engine, and settings, including how much storage, memory, and CPU you provision. Cloud SQL offers per-second billing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataGoogle Cloud SQL
    Considered Both Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    46 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    32 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    32 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    45 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    32 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    40 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    44 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    29 Answers
    Features
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataGoogle Cloud SQL
    Vector Database
    Comparison of Vector Database features of Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data and Google Cloud SQL
    Feature
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data
    8.0
    12 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Google Cloud SQL
    -
    Ratings
    Vector Data Connection8.212 Ratings00 Ratings
    Vector Data Editing8.56 Ratings00 Ratings
    Attribute Management7.710 Ratings00 Ratings
    Geospatial Analysis8.26 Ratings00 Ratings
    Geometric Transformations8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Vector Data Visualization8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Coordinate Reference System Management:7.96 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Import/Export8.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Symbolization and Styling8.35 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Sharing and Collaboration7.69 Ratings00 Ratings
    Database-as-a-Service
    Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data and Google Cloud SQL
    Feature
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.data
    -
    Ratings
    Google Cloud SQL
    8.9
    35 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Automatic software patching00 Ratings9.612 Ratings
    Database scalability00 Ratings8.635 Ratings
    Automated backups00 Ratings8.735 Ratings
    Database security provisions00 Ratings8.635 Ratings
    Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings9.134 Ratings
    Automatic host deployment00 Ratings9.012 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataGoogle Cloud SQL
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    MongoDB Atlas
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Azure Database
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Google BigQuery
    Score8.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataGoogle Cloud SQL
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (46 ratings)
    8.4
    (35 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    7.8
    (4 ratings)
    8.6
    (17 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (4 ratings)
    9.1
    (5 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.3
    (12 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.7
    (44 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Astra DB, now part of IBM watsonx.dataGoogle Cloud SQL
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    We've been super happy with Astra DB. It's been extremely well-suited for our vector search needs as described in previous responses. With Astra DB’s high-performance vector search, Maester’s AI dynamically optimizes responses in real-time, adapting to new user interactions without requiring costly retraining cycles.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    Does what it promises well, for instance, as a sidecar for the main enterprise data warehouse. However, I would not recommend using it as the main data warehouse, particularly due to the heavy business logic, as other dedicated tools are more suitable for ensuring scalable operations in terms of change management and multi-developer adjustments.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • We need to be able to process a lot of data (our biggest clients process hundreds of milions of transactions every month). However, it is not only the amount of data, it is also an unpredictable patterns with spikes occuring at different points of time - something athat Astra is great at.
    • Our processing needs to be extremaly fast. Some of our clients use our enrichment in a synchronous way, meaning that any delay in processing is holding up the whole transaction lifecycle and can have a major impact on the client. Astra is very fast.
    • A close collaboration with GCP makes our life very easy. All of our technology sits in Google Cloud, so having Astra in there makes it a no-brainer solution for us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    • It has a easily and user understandable interface which provides it every necessary feature to come up with.
    • It's backend is very strong that can help us to run big quieres without any hesitation.
    • It's integration with other tools are one of the powerful feature which makes it more suitable to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • Need better fine-grained Security options.
    • The support team sometimes requires the escalate button pressed on tickets, to get timely responses. I will say, once the ticket is escalated, action is taken.
    • They require better documentation on the migration of data. The three primary methods for migrating large data volumes are bulk, Cassandra Data Migrator, and ZDM (Zero Downtime Migration Utility). Over time I have become very familiar will all three of these methods; however, through working with the Services team and the support team, it seemed like we were breaking new ground. I feel if the utilities were better documented and included some examples and/or use cases from large data migrations; this process would have been easier. One lesson learned is you likely need to migrate your application servers to the same cloud provider you host Astra on; otherwise, the latency is too large for latency-sensitive applications.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    • Increasing support for more database engines may enable a wider range of application needs to be met.
    • Implementing and updating cutting-edge security features on a constant basis.
    • Streamlining and enhancing the tools for transferring data to Google Cloud SQL from on-premises databases or other cloud providers.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Google
    It fits the current needs and bandwith of out lean organization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Discontinued Products
    It's a great product but suffers with counters. This isn't a deal breaker but lets down what is otherwise a good all round solution
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    As with other cloud tools, users must learn a new terminology to navigate the various tools and configurations, and understand Google Cloud's configuration structure to perform even the most basic operations. So the learning curve is quite steep, but after a few months, it gets easier to maintain.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    Their response time is fast, in case you do not contact them during business hours, they give a very good follow-up to your case. They also facilitate video calls if necessary for debugging.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    GCP support in general requires a support agreement. For small organizations like us, this is not affordable or reasonable. It would help if Google had a support mechanism for smaller organizations. It was a steep learning curve for us because this was our first entry into the cloud database world. Better documentation also would have helped.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    Graph, search, analytics, administration, developer tooling, and monitoring are all incorporated into a single platform by Astra DB. Mongo Db is a self-managed infrastructure. Astra DB has Wide column store and Mongo DB has Document store. The best thing is that Astra DB operates on Java while Mongo DB operates on C++
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    Unlike other products, Google Cloud SQL has very flexible features that allow it to be selected for a free trial account so that the product can be analyzed and tested before purchasing it. Integration capabilities with most of the web services tools are easier regarding Google Cloud SQL with its nature and support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Discontinued Products
    We are well aware of the Cassandra architecture and familiar with the open source tooling that Datastax provides the industry (K8sSandra / Stargate) to scale Cassandra on Kubernetes.
    Having prior knowledge of Cassandra / Kubernetes means we know that under the hood Astra is built on infinitely scalable technologies. We trust that the foundations that Astra is built on will scale so we know Astra will scale.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • Better uptime due to the managed service having no outages
    • Less technical debt because we don't need to worry about upgrading our Cassandra clusters
    • Lower cost on infrastructure as a whole
    • Quick and easy to integrate vector search into our tech stack
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    • Improved integration with Google Cloud, we have set up some automations with Google Workspace, and we have noticed that the raw data sharing between them is very fast as compared to using some other managed database, not sure why.
    • Due to some downtime during maintenance, we had to set up a relatively small service which ingested the data while this went down and dumped it when it came back up. So this was a negative impact on our ROI, since now we had to remedy this downtime against the same profit margins
    • It was cheaper than the legacy aws service since we needed large database instances
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Google Cloud SQL Screenshots

    Screenshot of migrating to a fully managed database solution - Self-managing a database, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server, can be inefficient and expensive, with significant effort around patching, hardware maintenance, backups, and tuning. Migrating to a fully managed solution can be done using a Database Migration Service with minimal downtime.Screenshot of data-driven application development - Cloud SQL accelerates application development via integration with the larger ecosystem of Google Cloud services, Google partners, and the open source community.