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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 #9 with an average rating of 9.3, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Google holds a 4.0% mindshare in DS, compared to Microsoft’s 16.2% 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
  • 908 Views
  • 701 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Read 116 Microsoft Azure SQL Database reviews
  • 8,141 Views
  • 3,439 Comparison Views
96% willing to recommend
 

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.

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To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database Report (Updated: January 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database
January 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)
9th
Average Rating
9.0
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
7.2
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 4.0%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 16.2%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Ethan Lo - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and scalable relational database that ensures a return on investment for its users
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. You can change Google Cloud Spanner's resource configuration, which is done through processing units. Suppose you set up Google Cloud Spanner initially with a hundred processing units, and then you run out of resources since your database used too much CPU. In the aforementioned scenario, you can scale up or down and face no downtime in the production phase. The solution's features are important when running a company twenty-four hours, seven days a week.
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Charley Hanania - PeerSpot reviewer
It is very easy to implement, manage, and offers great insights into what is happening inside the engine
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. Once you've set up a server, adding databases is easy. There's a minor challenge with having data in separate databases that you want to connect like we do on premises. I'm looking forward to using some of these new AI-driven functions that have come out around vectorization. Having the data closer to my transactional databases or data makes it easy to augment and enhance the Database and applications I currently use. It's great that Azure SQL now seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Fabric. It's a first-tier service in the cloud that connects to web applications and other databases. The data transformation orchestration capabilities within Database Factory and similar capabilities make it effortless to move that stuff forward.
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."
"We've cut costs by around 70 percent."
"Database services and Active Directory related functions for this solution are good. Stable, scalable, and easy to install. Its technical support is good."
"We have used SQL for a long time. Azure SQL has helped teams across the organization to use SQL's full potential. I can't say what the cost savings were precisely, but I believe it has reduced the total cost of ownership."
"The ease of provisioning and administration is most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is PolyBase."
"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 initial setup is very easy. It's extremely straightforward."
"It's easy to use and maintain. If we look at the development of the maintenance team, we are not directly responsible for any infrastructure issues. We have too many positive sides to that. No maintenance, easy to use, and we'll know the limits very well."
More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros
 

Cons

"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."
"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."
"I haven't explored SQL Azure's features much, but I would like to see some better integration with Python."
"There is a need for dynamic scaling support without losing current transactions. That should be part of the standard offering to SKUs. It doesn't have Auto SQL. We have HyperSQL, but there are limitations on the Elastic Pool. It only allows 25 databases. It would help if we could automatically analyze and optimize long-running queries instead of handling these tasks manually."
"I would like to the solutions scalability to be improved."
"The solution’s pricing needs improvement because it is too high."
"One area for improvement could be expanding the search queries using vectors or AI inside the database. After seeing its potential in a workshop, I realized the usefulness of more advanced search queries with AI."
"Scalability is an issue because we can't upgrade to new versions due to hardware limitations."
"I would like to see integration with Snowflake."
"There is probably more functionality in our on-prem SQL Server than SQL Azure."
More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side."
"The solution is expensive."
"Google Cloud Spanner is an expensive solution."
"There is no licensing cost for the solution."
"We have had some issues with the licensing of the solution."
"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."
"When you go with SQL Azure Database, you can create a small database, which is around $4 to $5 per month for development purposes."
"Compared to other providers, the pricing is definitely on the affordable side."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The solution is moderately expensive."
"The license is based on the number of users."
More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Retailer
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
72%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Healthcare Company
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 do you like most about Google Cloud Spanner?
Google Cloud Spanner is stable.
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...
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?
The price for running the server increased more than expected in recent months, and better alignment of pricing expectations is needed. Notably, costs related to IT staff coming into the office on ...
See all answers
What needs improvement with SQL Azure?
We're trying to manage our costs better. We've noticed an unexpected increase in the cost of running the server over the past few months. Addressing pricing clarity and alignment would help us. Als...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Amazon RDS vs Google Cloud Spanner
Compared 31% of the time
MongoDB Atlas vs Google Cloud Spanner Logo
MongoDB Atlas vs Google Cloud Spanner
Compared 15% of the time
SingleStore vs Google Cloud Spanner Logo
SingleStore vs Google Cloud Spanner
Compared 11% of the time
Google Cloud SQL vs Google Cloud Spanner Logo
Google Cloud SQL vs Google Cloud Spanner
Compared 10% of the time
Oracle Database as a Service vs Google Cloud Spanner Logo
Oracle Database as a Service vs Google Cloud Spanner
Compared 6% of the time
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Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database Logo
Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Compared 44% of the time
Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database Logo
Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Compared 28% of the time
MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database Logo
MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Compared 15% of the time
Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database Logo
Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Compared 7% of the time
Redis vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database Logo
Redis vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Compared 1% of the time
More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
January 2025
Google Cloud Spanner reportDownload Google Cloud Spanner product report
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure SQL Database
January 2025
Microsoft Azure SQL Database reportDownload 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
January 2025
Free Report: Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
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