Google Cloud SQL vs. Azure SQL Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Cloud SQL
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Google Cloud SQL is a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) with the capability and functionality of MySQL.
$0
per core hour
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
Google Cloud SQLAzure SQL Database
Editions & Modules
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
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google Cloud SQLAzure SQL Database
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing 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
Google Cloud SQLAzure SQL Database
Considered Both Products
Google Cloud SQL
Chose Google Cloud SQL
When comparing cost, Google Cloud SQL typically offers a more straightforward and versatile plan than Azure SQL Database. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL is a serverless solution provided by Google Cloud SQL that automatically modifies resources according to workload. For customers …
Chose Google Cloud SQL
Google Cloud SQL performance is really strong and google infrastructure backed to handle high traffic and volume its very scalable in compare to other's product.Cost optimisation also play vital role in its advantage, data managing and storing helps alot in comparison to others …
Chose Google Cloud SQL
Google SQL was great as a first SQL provision. It quickly enabled the apps to be built and scaled as needed for a while. It was robust and adaptable as needed and easy to export as needed when ready, depending on growth. Cost-wise, it's a good choice and requires little …
Chose Google Cloud SQL
The Google Cloud SQL offering fits into our development stack and was a clean replacement for our MySQL database. If we had been using SQL Server instead, then the offering from Azure would have made more sense. I have used both in the past and both work well, with GCP being …
Chose Google Cloud SQL
At first, we choose Google Cloud SQL only for demo purposes. It is so easy to set up and It is fully managed. we have worked with Azure SQL as well but Google SQL is more simple to use and It fully secure, reliable, provides high availability, and very Low Latency.
Chose Google Cloud SQL
Easier learning, simple features and settings with a very user-friendly application environment and flexible prices make Google Cloud [SQL] a pioneering option over competitors
Chose Google Cloud SQL
Google Cloud SQL is just as good as the other guys. We were already invested in GCP, which made the choice very easy. We did not want to start fresh in AWS or Azure. We used our existing GCP setup and just added Cloud SQL. It's unfortunate that companies continue to send people …
Chose Google Cloud SQL
There are many options for cloud-hosted dedicated SQL instances. In many ways, simply moving from software and server-based database to a dedicated cloud database is just generally good. All hosts provide some sort of scaling and backup, and all separate the server management …
Azure SQL Database
Chose Azure SQL Database
It is very easy to setup SQL database on Azure. one can always refer to their documentation for best practices. It is highly available and scalable. It is cheaper than its alternatives and provide better performance than others. As we are using many other services of Azure for …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Google Cloud SQLAzure SQL Database
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Google Cloud SQL
9.0
24 Ratings
3% above category average
Azure SQL Database
9.2
28 Ratings
6% above category average
Automatic software patching9.612 Ratings9.026 Ratings
Database scalability9.224 Ratings9.028 Ratings
Automated backups9.324 Ratings10.028 Ratings
Database security provisions9.224 Ratings9.028 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics8.023 Ratings8.027 Ratings
Automatic host deployment9.012 Ratings10.023 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google Cloud SQLAzure SQL Database
Small Businesses
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 8.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google Cloud SQLAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(24 ratings)
8.1
(28 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(6 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.4
(4 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.1
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google Cloud SQLAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Although Google Cloud SQL has room for improvement by addressing a minor lack of features, its features and services keep it high among other SQL database products. It is very fast compared to others. Since it is cloud-based, maintenance is also easier. Integration capabilities are also more than expected.
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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.
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Pros
Google
  • Very easy to use and migrate existing database systems to Google Cloud SQL system
  • Easy to query with real-time query assessment as well as processing metrics to help optimize the queries
  • No need to learn any other querying language (like in Hadoop ecosystem), as SQL works pretty fine
  • Easy-to-use GCP portal to type in queries and see the results on the screen (no need to go on command line )
  • Easy to set up
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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.
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Cons
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.
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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
Everything is great about using Google Cloud SQL, but I only dock marks for requiring the Cloud Auth Proxy to connect locally without using allowed networks. I get that it's necessary since it's behind a VPC but it's just a bit clunky to use. That being said, I wouldn't really call that a big deciding factor for Google Cloud SQL's usability.
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Microsoft
It just works!
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Support Rating
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.
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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
In our experience, we were down for almost a day, because Database Engineers at Rackspace weren't able to understand or provide a solution, and when they did, they had to recreate the database from the scratch. On a server, this is time consuming. When we faced a similar scenario on Google Cloud SQL it was as easy as to recover from the last image through the console. We were back up in less than 30 minutes. Such a solution, saves you money by reducing churn and keeping the business operating.
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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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Return on Investment
Google
  • When first migrated to a cloud environment, the Cloud SQL instance had a higher cost than our former MySQL VM instance, but many other infrastructure costs had also been reduced and the total balance of our migration to the cloud was a reduction of 45% of our infrastructure costs.
  • DB performance has increased and maintenance tasks reduced in a high percentage.
  • Disaster recovery plans are easier to follow now than before our cloud migration.
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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

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.