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Couchbase Capella vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Couchbase Capella
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
AI Data Analysis (23rd)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Couchbase Capella is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 10.5%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database10.5%
Couchbase Capella1.4%
Other88.1%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

SupriyaKulkarni - PeerSpot reviewer
Devops Specialist at Amdocs
Good GUI, easy to learn, and simple to install
The architecture is complex. I do understand that. However, the GUI is very user-friendly. Sometimes all these things are a little difficult to understand for a person who is not experienced in Couchbase. There is a constant requirement to upgrade the versions. We need to constantly keep on upgrading the latest version for the newest one. Currently, we are dealing with an issue where some of the servers are on the 6.5 version, and a few have moved to 7.5. So we are in a mixed mode right now. We are having a high IO issue on our servers, which we are already dealing with. We have these cases with Couchbase, with Red Hat, et cetera. We feel like this constant need to upgrade is something that is very mundane yet a very difficult task. If you have three clusters, which have around thirty nodes, the data is quite sensitive. Whenever there is Couchbase upgrade that is going on, we see that our SR is dropped. The purchase rate and success rate drop. This affects our business and the clients. Rebalancing could be improved. I find it to be a very slow process when it comes to rebalancing the clusters. If you talk about other architectures like Oracle, they are pretty fast. Couchbase is a little slower. Rebalancing, taking the node out, doing the upgrade, putting it back, rebalancing it, is a very difficult and cumbersome. For Oracle, we have been running on version 19.5 for the past five years. There were absolutely no issues. Yet for Couchbase, every six months, we have to go do the upgrade.
Thomas Sawyer - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Director, Platform Architecture at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation – SMBC Group
Automatic tuning and multi-region availability have reduced manual workloads and improved performance management
The features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I like the most are easy scaling and high availability. I appreciate those features because it's easy to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database readily available in a multi-region infrastructure. Using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very easy; it's much easier than SQL on-premise because I don't have to worry about deploying infrastructure, and I can rapidly deploy via infrastructure as code. I am using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database. We are using the new feature of data encryption in Microsoft Azure SQL Database with customer-managed keys only. The reliability and stability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database platform are rock-solid; it's as good, if not better, than what our on-premise stability has been from an uptime perspective.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The way the nodes are managed is interesting."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It has significantly streamlined our disaster recovery plans, making it much more straightforward to spin up new instances as opposed to setting up a new VM with all necessary packages. The normal cost of our VMs with storage has been significantly reduced."
"The biggest return on investment from my perspective when using Microsoft Azure SQL Database comes from how easy it is to set up and how much of a foundation it already has in terms of being a trusted platform."
"We have come from hosting on-premise for customers, or they've done it themselves with SQL. We've now taken a cloud offering for the equivalent services of standard database management and the inbuilt backup and restore offerings. The scalability is probably the biggest feature that we are benefiting from by being in the cloud."
"It's a good cloud solution, very easy to use on any platform and works well."
"Every new version has new features and it pretty much covers everything in terms of memory, database, the caching, the redundancy, and high availability."
"The ability to maintain different environments, such as development and production databases, is valuable."
"We like the collaborative nature of the solution."
"The administration console in Azure, all in one is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"The product could be improved by including a log section for tracking activities, enhancing database integration, and providing more transparency regarding pricing and monitoring activities."
"Rebalancing could be improved."
"Azure SQL can improve by adding more machine learning features like other databases, such as Cassandra or Cosmos DB."
"It is a little bit expensive for us. They can improve the price. It would also be very helpful if they can offer some free trial."
"The pricing is very high."
"The configuration is the area that is most cumbersome."
"The configuration is the area that is most cumbersome."
"There is so much information that it becomes confusing at times. The information can be more friendly. They could also provide additional training, especially at the beginning."
"I was using a user list for connecting a program in OTF for getting information. The connection in SQL Azure can improve by being easier because at the moment I have to use private certificates for user authentication."
"The benefits I have realized from using Microsoft Azure SQL Database are currently limited since we've only done it in test and dev environments right now, and we haven't moved to production, so we haven't realized the full gain just yet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap."
"We have a three-year contract. The cost was somewhere around $70-80,000 for the original deployment, which was about two years ago"
"It requires a license. As compared to its competitors, such as Oracle, it is affordable and reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is expensive. Snowflake and PostgreSQL are cheaper than this. Google is also cheaper than Azure. Its licensing is on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is based on usage and storage."
"The price in general of Azure SQL could improve."
"I am not aware of the exact pricing, but our monthly bill for Azure is around 80,000. It is less expensive than using SQL Server. It has the pay-as-you-go model, and the charges are based on the usage."
"It is quite expensive. I would definitely recommend not using the pay-as-you-go model because this will just mean all your money will go to Microsoft. So, really make sure to control resource usage as much as possible."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Performing Arts
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Couchbase Capella?
The architecture is complex. I do understand that. However, the GUI is very user-friendly. Sometimes all these things are a little difficult to understand for a person who is not experienced in Cou...
What is your primary use case for Couchbase Capella?
The solution is basically used to support our ordering system, which generates a huge number of orders for our customers.
What advice do you have for others considering Couchbase Capella?
We are Counchbase customers. Depending on your application, it is good to use Couchbase where you have high OLTP systems where you know there will be constant data loading, deleting, et cetera, hap...
What do you like most about SQL Azure?
The automated scalability feature of SQL Azure has proven to be highly beneficial, particularly when deployed in the cloud.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SQL Azure?
I would say I am at a basic experience level with the pricing, setup costs and licensing because while I am the administrator for the service, I do not provision the services and worry about the co...
What needs improvement with SQL Azure?
I have no comments at the moment on how Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved. I have no comments on additional features that I would like to see released in the next release. I do not have ...
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Couchbase Capella vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.