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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Compute Engine

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Compute Engine is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) product from Google Cloud. It provides virtual machines with carbon-neutral infrastructure which run on the same data centers that Google itself uses.

    $0

    per month GB

    Microsoft SQL Server

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft SQL Server is a relational database.

    $1,418

    Per License

    Pricing
    Google Compute EngineMicrosoft SQL Server
    Editions & Modules
    Preemptible Price - Predefined Memory
    0.000892 / GB
    Hour
    Three-year commitment price - Predefined Memory
    $0.001907 / GB
    Hour
    One-year commitment price - Predefined Memory
    $0.002669 / GB
    Hour
    On-demand price - Predefined Memory
    $0.004237 / GB
    Hour
    Preemptible Price - Predefined vCPUs
    0.006655 / vCPU
    Hour
    Three-year commitment price - Predefined vCPUS
    $0.014225 / CPU
    Hour
    One-year commitment price - Predefined vCPUS
    $0.019915 / vCPU
    Hour
    On-demand price - Predefined vCPUS
    $0.031611 / vCPU
    Hour
    Subscription
    $1,418.00
    Per License
    Enterprise
    $13,748.00
    Per License
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google Compute EngineMicrosoft SQL Server
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsPrices vary according to region (i.e US central, east, & west time zones). Google Compute Engine also offers a discounted rate for a 1 & 3 year commitment.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google Compute EngineMicrosoft SQL Server
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    98%
    Would buy again
    45 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    53 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    44 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    44 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    53 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    91%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    39 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    41 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    45 Answers
    Features
    Google Compute EngineMicrosoft SQL Server
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Google Compute Engine and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    Google Compute Engine
    8.0
    65 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime8.125 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling7.860 Ratings00 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing9.353 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates9.562 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring tools3.026 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images9.464 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating system support8.365 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security controls9.163 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation7.92 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google Compute EngineMicrosoft SQL Server
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Amazon RDS
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    SAP IQ
    Score5.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Compute EngineMicrosoft SQL Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (65 ratings)
    7.9
    (107 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (9 ratings)
    7.6
    (17 ratings)
    Availability
    9.6
    (28 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (28 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (10 ratings)
    7.9
    (26 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (5 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google Compute EngineMicrosoft SQL Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    You can use Google Cloud Compute Engine as an option to configure your Gitlab, GitHub, and Azure DevOps self-hosted runners. This allows full control and management of your runners rather than using the default runners, which you cannot manage. Additionally, they can be used as a workspace, which you can provide to the employees, where they can test their workloads or use them as a local host and then deploy to the actual production-grade instance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft SQL is ubiquitous, while MySQL runs under the hood all over the place. Microsoft SQL is the platform taught in colleges and certification courses and is the one most likely to be used by businesses because it is backed by Microsoft. Its interface is friendly (well, as pleasant as SQL can be) and has been used by so many for so long that resources are freely available if you encounter any issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Google
    • Scaling - whether it's traffic spikes or just steady growth, Google Compute Engine's auto-scaling makes sure we've got the compute power we need without any manual juggling acts
    • Load balancing - Keeping things smooth with that load balancing across multiple VMs, so our users don't have to deal with slow load times or downtime even when things get crazy busy
    • Customizability - Mix and match configs for CPU, RAM, storage and whatnot to suit our specific app needs
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Easy to configure and use with Visual Studio and Dot Net
    • Easy integration with MSBI to perform data analysis
    • Data Security
    • Easy to understand and use
    • Very easy to export database and tables in the form of SQL query or a script
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • Built-in monitoring via Stackdriver is quite expensive for what it provides.
    • Initially provided quotas (ie. max compute units one can use) are very low and it took several requests to get an appropriate amount.
    • Support on GCE is limited to their knowledge base and forums. For more hands-on support provided by Google, you must pay for their Premium services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise edition has a high cost but is the only edition which supports SQL Always On Availability Groups. It would be nice to include this feature in the Standard version.
    • Licensing of Microsoft SQL Server is a quite complex matter, it would be good to simplify licensing in the future. For example, per core vs per user CAL licensing, as well as complex licensing scenarios in the Cloud and on Edge locations.
    • It would be good to include native tools for converting Oracle, DB2, Postgresql and MySQL/MariaDB databases (schema and data) for import into Microsoft SQL Server.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    Its pretty good, easy and good performance. Also, interface is very good for starters compared to competitors. Infra as Code (IaC) using Terraform even added easiness for creation, management and deletion of compute Virtual Machines (VM). Overall, very good and very easy cloud based compute platform which simplified infrastructure, very much recommend.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We understand that the Microsoft SQL Server will continue to advance, offering the same robust and reliable platform while adding new features that enable us, as a software center, to create a superior product. That provides excellent performance while reducing the hardware requirements and the total cost of ownership of our solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    Having interacted with several cloud services, GCE stands out to me as more usable than most. The naming and locating of features is a little more intuitive than most I've interacted with, and hinting is also quite helpful. Getting staff up to speed has proven to be overall less painful than others.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    Google Compute Engine works well for cloud project with lesser geographical audience. It sometimes gives error while everything is set up perfectly. We also keep on check any updates available because that's one reason of site getting down. Google Compute Engine is ultimately a top solution to build an app and publish it online within a few minutes
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Its does not have outages.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Google
    It works great all the time except for occasional issues, but overall, I am very happy with the performance. It delivers on the promise it makes and as per the SLAs provided. Networking is great with a premium network, and AZs are also widespread across geographies. Overall, it is a great infra item to have, which you can scale as you want.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    SSAS data cubes may some time slow down your Excel reports.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Google
    • The documentation needs to be better for intermediate users - There are first steps that one can easily follow, but after that, the documentation is often spotty or not in a form where one can follow the steps and accomplish the task. Also, the documentation and the product often go out of sync, where the commands from the documentation do not work with the current version of the product.
    • Google support was great and their presence on site was very helpful in dealing with various issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    It was good
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    very hands on and detailed training
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    Google Compute Engine provides a one stop solution for all the complex features and the UI is better than Amazon's EC2 and Azure Machine Learning for ease of usability. It's always good to have an eco-system of products from Google as it's one of the most used search engine and IoT services provider, which helps with ease of integration and updates in the future.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    [Microsoft] SQL Server has a much better community and professional support and is overall just a more reliable system with Microsoft behind it. I've used MySQL in the past and SQL Server has just become more comfortable for me and is my go to RDBMS.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Google
    It works really well with other Google Cloud services, making it easy to build scalable solutions across different teams and locations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    SQL server does handle growing demands of a mid sized company.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Google
    • With Google Compute we don't have the overhead of managing our own data centers reducing costs and reducing the staff needed to manage systems.
    • As I said earlier, Google's costs are ~1/2 of AWS, so we are able to see a ROI much faster.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Increased accuracy - We went from multiple users having different versions of an Excel spreadsheet to a single source of truth for our reporting.
    • Increased Efficiency - We can now generate reports at any time from a single source rather than multiple users spending their time collating data and generating reports.
    • Improved Security - Enterprise level security on a dedicated server rather than financial files on multiple laptop hard drives.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Google Compute Engine Screenshots

    Screenshot of How to choose the right VM
With thousands of applications, each with different requirements, which VM is right for you?Screenshot of documentation, guides, and reference architectures
Migration Center is Google Cloud's unified migration platform with features like cloud spend estimation, asset discovery, and a variety of tooling for different migration scenarios.