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Google Cloud Spanner vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

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

Google Cloud Spanner
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 July 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 7.5%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 9.5%, down from 15.4% 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 Database9.5%
Google Cloud Spanner7.5%
Other83.0%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

LJ
System Architect at UST Global España
Offers good performance to users
The tool lacks to offer AI features. In the future, I would like the product to offer AI features to users. Nowadays, we are creating small acronyms for our SQL Server. We put some templates. If I just put your name and stop it, the entire cloud can be explored, but such features are not there in Google Cloud Spanner. As a layman rather than a developer, if I create a tool or a procedure. If I write a procedure and then when you describe a procedure, a dummy procedure will be written for you, and it will be available for you as a template in SQL Server, but such kind features are not there in Google Cloud Spanner.
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 solution is stable and reliable."
"We can scale the solution if we need to."
"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its scalability. Scalability comes with two options, among which Google Cloud Spanner can scale horizontally, compared to other relational databases that scale vertically."
"The application deployment in the cloud is the best feature of the infrastructure."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"Microsoft Azure SQL Database has helped us tremendously with regards to cost and scaling, and it is just really easy to use and really easy with permissions as well through Entra ID."
"The main valuable feature is the auto scaling, and the security features they've implemented on cloud make it a little easier compared to on-prem SQL, enabling added scalability while making costing more reliable, flexible, and cost effective."
"There are a lot of other databases available in the market, but the ease with which you can do the development and the overall support that you get cannot be compared with any other database."
"Customers can benefit from a lot of cost savings if they go for Azure."
"The feature I like the most about Microsoft Azure SQL Database is the scaling part."
"Hosting these types of databases on-premises can be challenging, but if you have the ability to do it on Azure, that is beneficial, and it also removes security obstacles as well."
"Cost savings are the most valuable. The DR/high availability is also valuable. The failover group with the built-in DR/high availability features is probably one of the easiest things."
"In terms of ease of use, I found Microsoft Azure SQL Database as easy to use as the on-premises version; my experience was that it really was pretty seamless, I didn't have to learn any new SQL, and we're still able to access it using SSMS, the same similar interface, so it was a seamless transition."
 

Cons

"The tool lacks to offer AI features."
"The cost can be a bit high."
"I want to improve the deployment of cameras and surveillance infrastructure."
"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."
"Google came up with something called Cloud Spanner Emulator, which fails to work like the real product if I want to develop some code and run a database locally on my machine."
"I want the pricing to be improved. They should try to lower it for their customers."
"The concurrency between the amount of the transactional replications and the logging needs to be improved."
"Price definitely will be the negative point. It is quite expensive."
"Our data warehouse in total is about two terabytes, and the tables we're referring to are around 60 million rows, which are approximately 60 to 70 gigabytes."
"The solution lacks feedback tools."
"The management is entirely controlled by Microsoft, so there are some restrictions."
"One area for improvement is the need for accurate cost estimates."
"We've had many concurrency issues with it, particularly with applications that do a lot of parallel processing. We noticed that sometimes the Azure SQL databases would spike and peak their CPU units, causing some performance issues for us. It would be helpful if CPU performance were not pinned to the amount of storage you're using, and we could scale different properties of the Azure SQL database independently."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side."
"Google Cloud Spanner is an expensive solution."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"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."
"It requires a license. As compared to its competitors, such as Oracle, it is affordable and reasonable."
"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."
"We have a three-year contract. The cost was somewhere around $70-80,000 for the original deployment, which was about two years ago"
"With one being expensive and five being competitive, I would give the product a four out of five as it's relatively competitive. It is also important to note that pricing is based on usage."
"The solution is more cost-effective than Google BigQuery. Compared to Google BigQuery, downloading data can be more expensive."
"The licensing for this solution is based on subscription."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing 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 is your primary use case for Google Cloud Spanner?
Google Cloud Spanner has all the features of a traditional relational database, including schemas, SQL queries, ACID transactions, and provides excellent integration and monitoring tools as well as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Spanner?
Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side. I am not sure if this is a rumor or if it's fake news, but I believe that having BigQuery and GCP together could be a little cos...
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Spanner?
The tool lacks to offer AI features. In the future, I would like the product to offer AI features to users. Nowadays, we are creating small acronyms for our SQL Server. We put some templates. If I ...
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 ...
What is your primary use case for SQL Azure?
My main use cases for Microsoft Azure SQL Database are third-party applications.
 

Also Known As

Google Spanner
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Streak, Optiva, Mixpanel
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
904,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.