Google Cloud Spanner vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database comparison

Google and Microsoft are both solutions in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category. Google is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.0, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. Google holds a 6.4% mindshare in DS, compared to Microsoft’s 11.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Google Cloud Spanner

Read 5 Google Cloud Spanner reviews

1,047 Views
984 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Read 134 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews

3,559 Views
3,488 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Google Cloud Spanner

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2024

Microsoft Azure SQL Database and Google Cloud Spanner are two prominent cloud database services with distinct functionalities and benefits, each suited to different needs. Users find Spanner superior for its global distribution and consistency.

Features: Microsoft Azure SQL Database is praised for its integrated AI capabilities, disaster recovery options, and strong integration with Microsoft services. Google Cloud Spanner is noted for its strong global scaling, true ACID compliance, and global transactional consistency.

Room for Improvement: Users identify areas for improvement in Azure SQL Database's performance tuning, advanced data analytics features, and documentation. For Google Cloud Spanner, complex query execution, additional native support for various data types, and training resources need enhancements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Users generally find the deployment process of Microsoft Azure SQL Database straightforward, benefitting from integrated support. Google Cloud Spanner offers robust deployment options but could enhance initial setup ease. Azure receives mixed feedback on customer service responsiveness, while Spanner users value prompt and knowledgeable support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers competitive pricing with flexible options, appealing to those seeking cost-effective solutions. Google Cloud Spanner, meanwhile, is considered expensive but justified by its high performance and scalability. Users experience significant ROI with Azure due to cost savings, while Spanner users justify the higher upfront costs with long-term gains in performance and reliability.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

December 2025

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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

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 January 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 6.4%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 11.3%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure SQL Database	11.3%
Google Cloud Spanner	6.4%
Other	82.3%

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

LijomonJose

System Architect at UST Global EspaÃ±a

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.

Read full review

Thomas Sawyer

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The application deployment in the cloud is the best feature of the infrastructure."

"It is a very scalable solution."

"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."

"We can scale the solution if we need to."

"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 initial setup is very easy. It's extremely straightforward."

"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is its accessibility."

"The dashboard is valuable."

"One of the most valuable aspects is its seamless integration with Azure Data Factory."

"Our migration to Azure for most databases has increased our organization's efficiency and reduced the maintenance required to manage on-premises infrastructure."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is integrated into other Azure capabilities and has a great foundation being on SQL Server with a long history of security, performance, and usability from a DBA perspective."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The automated scalability feature of SQL Azure has proven to be highly beneficial, particularly when deployed in the cloud."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

Cons

"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."

"I want to improve the deployment of cameras and surveillance infrastructure."

"The tool lacks to offer AI features."

"The cost can be a bit high."

"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."

"Lacks some tools on the SQL Server for data virtualization."

"It does take some time to learn about the environment."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap."

"Scalability is an issue because we can't upgrade to new versions due to hardware limitations."

"The solution’s pricing needs improvement because it is too high."

"I would like to the solutions scalability to be improved."

"The solution requires familiarity with its language so can be tricky."

"One area for improvement could be expanding the search queries using vectors or AI inside the database."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side."

"Google Cloud Spanner is an expensive solution."

"The solution is expensive."

"It is expensive."

"I'm not sure what the exact price is, but it's a moderate amount. It's not too expensive."

"When looking at the long-term expenses associated with running software on an on-premises server, the costs are almost equivalent but when we include insurance for devices, onsite fees for servers, and other related costs, we may find that this is a cost-effective solution."

"The cost is around $2,000 per month."

"The license is based on the number of users."

"The solution is moderately expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"Offers options for paying the license on a yearly or a monthly basis."

"If we use a smaller or free-sized Microsoft Azure SQL Database, it is extremely cost-effective and much cheaper than on-premise enterprise licenses, which are expensive."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

13%

Healthcare Company

10%

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	59
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	61

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...

See all answers

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...

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What needs improvement with Google Cloud Spanner?

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Oracle Database as a Service vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 18% of the time

Yugabyte Platform vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 15% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 9% of the time

Redis vs Google Cloud Spanner

Compared 6% of the time

More Google Cloud Spanner Competitors

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 20% of the time

Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 16% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 13% of the time

Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 9% of the time

vCloud Air vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

January 2026

Download Google Cloud Spanner product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

January 2026

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database product report

Also Known As

Google Spanner

No data available

Overview

Cloud Spanner is the first and only relational database service that is both strongly consistent and horizontally scalable. With Cloud Spanner you enjoy all the traditional benefits of a relational database: ACID transactions, relational schemas (and schema changes without downtime), SQL queries, high performance, and high availability. But unlike any other relational database service, Cloud Spanner scales horizontally, to hundreds or thousands of servers, so it can handle the highest of transactional workloads. With automatic scaling, synchronous data replication, and node redundancy, Cloud Spanner delivers up to 99.999% (five 9s) of availability for your mission critical applications. In fact, Google’s internal Spanner service has been handling millions of queries per second from many Google services for years.

Google

Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a-service that delivers predictable performance, scalability, business continuity, data protection, and near-zero administration to cloud developers and solution architects. This is the deep technical library for Azure SQL Database.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Streak, Optiva, Mixpanel

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

December 2025

Free Report: Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database

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