Google BigQuery vs. Azure SQL Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google BigQuery
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Google's BigQuery is part of the Google Cloud Platform, a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) supporting the querying and rapid analysis of enterprise data.
$4
per 100 slots
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
Google BigQueryAzure SQL Database
Editions & Modules
Queries (Hourly Flex Slots)
$4
per 100 slots
Queries (On-Demand)
$5
per TB
Queries (Annual Flat Rate)
$1,700
per 100 slots
Queries (Monthly Flat Rate)
$2000
per 100 slots
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google BigQueryAzure SQL Database
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google BigQueryAzure SQL Database
Considered Both Products
Google BigQuery
Chose Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery integrates seamlessly with Web Analytics data compared to the Azure cloud.
Google BigQuery integrates natively with different digital media platforms compared to Azure and AWs.
Azure SQL Database

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Google BigQueryAzure SQL Database
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Google BigQuery
8.8
30 Ratings
1% above category average
Azure SQL Database
9.1
27 Ratings
4% above category average
Automatic software patching8.717 Ratings8.525 Ratings
Database scalability9.430 Ratings9.827 Ratings
Automated backups9.024 Ratings9.527 Ratings
Database security provisions9.124 Ratings9.127 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics7.926 Ratings8.826 Ratings
Automatic host deployment8.813 Ratings9.122 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google BigQueryAzure SQL Database
Small Businesses
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 9.3 out of 10
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 9.3 out of 10
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 9.3 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google BigQueryAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(31 ratings)
8.7
(27 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(16 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
8.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google BigQueryAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
One of the most important aspects while working with data warehousing solutions and analytics is the ability to handle large datasets. Google BigQuery is the best in business for that particular aspect. It is ridiculously fast while handling large data sets. Another aspect where it is well suited is the ability to integrate it with data visualization tools like Data Studio. It is fast, easy to use, and very reliable. The only aspect where I feel it is less appropriate where you have to pay more of inefficient scripts and that can hamper the growth of the company a bit.
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Microsoft
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.
Read full review
Pros
Google
  • BigQuery is ridiculously fast and has the ability to query absurdly large data sets to return results immediately.
  • BigQuery allows for storage of a massive amount of data for relatively low prices.
  • Easy to learn. BiqQuery uses SQL-like queries and is easy to transfer your existing skills to use.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • 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.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • One issue with Google Cloud Storage is its price. For one to have that premium Google Cloud Storage, for the purpose of massive storage, he/she must have adequate cash. Otherwise, Google Cloud Storage is a safe and perfect online storage platform.
  • The only thing that can come to mind that would be annoying with this software was that sometimes when trying to share files on the Cloud with coworkers, it would just not share at all, or there would be a massive delay in when I shared them and when they received them. Other than that though, everything is perfect with this.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • 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).
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
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Usability
Google
web UI is easy and convenient. Many RDBMS clients such as aqua data studio, Dbeaver data grid, and others connect. Range of well-documented APIs available. The range of features keeps expanding, increasing similar features to traditional RDBMS such as Oracle and DB2
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Google
It’s Google, they’re big and well organized, the documentation is abundant and the scalability is amazing. The UX is good too, considering it’s a professional tool expected to be used by people with a specific technical background. Overall, it makes me feels good and secure that we know where to store the data, how to use that data and that the data is handled with utmost security and performance practices.
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Microsoft
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.
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Alternatives Considered
Google
Spinning up, provisioning, maintaining and debugging a Hadoop solution can be non-trivial, painful. I'm talking about both GCE based or HDInsight clusters. It requires expertise (+ employee hire, costs). With BigQuery if someone has a good SQL knowledge (and maybe a little programming), can already start to test and develop. All of the infrastructure and platform services are taken care of. Google BigQuery is a magnitudes simpler to use than Hadoop, but you have to evaluate the costs. BigQuery billing is dependent on your data size and how much data your query touches.
Read full review
Microsoft
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.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Google
None so far. Very satisfied with the transparency on contract terms and pricing model.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Google
Google Support has kindly provide individual support and consultants to assist with the integration work. In the circumstance where the consultants are not present to support with the work, Google Support Helpline will always be available to answer to the queries without having to wait for more than 3 days.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Google
  • Google BigQuery has had enormous impact in terms of ROI to our business, as it has allowed us to ease our dependence on our physical servers, which we pay for monthly from another hosting service. We have been able to run multiple enterprise scale data processing applications with almost no investment
  • Since our business is highly client focused, Google Cloud Platform, and BigQuery specifically, has allowed us to get very granular in how our usage should be attributed to different projects, clients, and teams.
  • Plain and simple, I believe the meager investments that we have made in Google BigQuery have paid themselves back hundreds of times over.
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Microsoft
  • 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.
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ScreenShots