Azure SQL Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
Azure SQL Database
Editions & Modules
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure SQL Database
Free Trial
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee
Additional Details—
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure SQL Database
Considered Both Products
Azure SQL Database
Chose Azure SQL Database
We have selected it because we are using Azure Cloud and it is the best option for us to go ahead with Azure SQL Database.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Amazon's RDS offering is actually very good and is used in other parts of the company, we just have a lot of Azure experience so wanted to leverage that.
Chose Azure SQL Database
The Azure SQL Database, compared to our on premise SQL server installation, is much easier to use in terms of seeing database diagnostics. There is a whole visualization platform that comes with the tool that will allow your database administrator to see what jobs are tying up …
Chose Azure SQL Database
The simplicity and great features and good support of Microsoft as well as the more reasonable flexible price than other competitors is one of the important reasons for choosing it.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Oracle Database is "the" serious database. There really is no competition in that field. SQL Database would be a serious competitor through the ease of implementation and the "no maintenance," but since it's too expensive for "normal" use (medium to small applications), it just …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Amazon RDS for SQL Server is the best example to compare with Azure SQL Database since both provide a Microsoft SQL Engine to host your databases.

Amazon RDS for SQL is much more compatible with your on-premises databases than Azure SQL, the reason is that Amazon RDS for SQL …
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 …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL has a slight advantage over its rivals because it's developed by Microsoft, so it is well suited to professionals.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Being able to manage our databases in the cloud, scale quickly, and only require access to VMs made choosing Azure a no-brainer over a traditional SQL Server installation/integration. We don't have the budget or resources to integrate and maintain servers on our own, so using …
Chose Azure SQL Database
I would say MySQL in either Aurora or MariaDB form come close however, Azure SQL Database has a more streamlined approach to delivering a consistent programmability model, supported drivers and feature set.
Azure SQL Database T-SQL is advantageous and more complete than SQL …
Chose Azure 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 …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Azure owned by Microsoft who owned SQL Server, so provided a variety of tools for easy migration/transition and from on-premises to the cloud; and management. I recommend using Azure for any on-prem SQL server databases.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Very similar product. Our company preferred to remain in the Microsoft Software Suite.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL is a clear upgrade to SQL Server 2012 and pretty much has the advantage with all the extra features that it has. Security, queries, exporting tables, T-SQL has all improved. Transitioning 18+ years of an in-house database to the cloud was a struggle, but for the …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Amazon Relational Database Service is the other obvious competitor. We were already in Azure, so it's not a serious contender for our business due to that bias already, but I do personally find the marketing and documentation of RDS more intimidating to sort through.
Chose Azure SQL Database
Comparing with Amazon Aurora: Azure SQL DB is 100% compatible with SQL Server and Aurora is compatible with MySQL and PostGreSQL. Because of if, SQL DB suits large enterprises with hundreds of databases better.
Comparing with Oracle: the main issue is that Oracle will try to …
Chose Azure SQL Database
It reduces the business cost as it provides large storage capacity with massive speed. Data security is primary benefit which this product gives me.
Chose Azure SQL Database
It stacks up in different ways, for the most part, I think Microsoft is doing a really good job versus the competition. They basically started database type products from the beginning. I've always been excited about updates and can see their progress over time. Get's me really …
Chose Azure SQL Database
AWS's solution would be an alternative. I felt since we're a Window shop and already had a small investment into Azure, it was a no brainer.
Chose Azure SQL Database
It's more easy to shift and get all the services up in no time, provide best up time and monitoring easily so you can get the best services which take care of themselves. It's a better fitting for a large company size.
Chose Azure SQL Database
If you are a company that is already invested in Microsoft technologies, then the Azure suite is a better fit than the Amazon suite.
Chose Azure SQL Database
As we were early adopters with Azure and landed on the Azure PaaS (Platform as a Service), it made sense to use databases that were on the same platform as the application to save on costs. Also, we were impressed with the simplicity of Azure SQL. From a management perspective …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Azure SQL Database
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Azure SQL Database
9.2
27 Ratings
5% above category average
Automatic software patching8.125 Ratings
Database scalability10.027 Ratings
Automated backups9.927 Ratings
Database security provisions9.027 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics9.026 Ratings
Automatic host deployment9.022 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure SQL Database
Small Businesses
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(27 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(5 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
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
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
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
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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Support Rating
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
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
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