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.

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.

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 resources or other bottlenecks.

We looked at Google Cloud SQL and Amazon RDS services, but we did not want to switch to a different structure from the system we currently use.

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.

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 priced itself out of the market, so to speak. Nevertheless, we do have 2 or 3 large applications that are highly integrated in azure, and for those it's just too easy to use SQL Database instead of the on premise Oracle Database with VPN gateways etcetera.

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 actually runs Microsoft SQL Server On-Premises Engine but on its cloud-managed instances.

Due to that, Amazon RDS for SQL is more expensive, although it provides flexible licensing options with [bringing] your own license, it is still more expensive to use and its available options are dependant on the type of deployment you choose.

On the other hand, Azure SQL is fully cloud-managed since Microsoft owns the SQL Product itself and can customize it to match its cloud needs, [it's] a simple decision to be honest [...] if you plan to use a Microsoft SQL Engine, you should surely go with Azure SQL, Amazon RDS for SQL can be a good option if you are already on-boarded on AWS and would prefer not to expand or move to another cloud provider.

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 creating a SaaS application, so it is always better to have all services at one place.

I prefer Azures UI and cost to Data exchange.

Azure SQL has a slight advantage over its rivals because it's developed by Microsoft, so it is well suited to professionals.

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 Azure SQL allows us to manage within those constraints.

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.

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.

Very similar product. Our company preferred to remain in the Microsoft Software Suite.

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 long-term solution it is worth it.

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.

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 push all other services available in their product offering.

It reduces the business cost as it provides large storage capacity with massive speed. Data security is primary benefit which this product gives me.

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 excited when I see new updates.

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.

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.

If you are a company that is already invested in Microsoft technologies, then the Azure suite is a better fit than the Amazon suite.

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 and an automation perspective it's much easier to have all the eggs in one basket (as long as you plan for the unexpected/disaster recovery).