Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer comparison

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

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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

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

117

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Cus...

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 15.9%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer is 4.1%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Featured Reviews

Charley Hanania

Data Platform Specialist at QS2 AG - Quality Software Solutions

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

RODRIGOPETERSON

Senior Architect at Capgemini

Leverages cloud capabilities and offers minimal latency with operation model

Customers have less operational burden and more responsibility regarding the management of hardware. Increasing the scale of Oracle Exadata Cloud provides more capacity, higher performance, and expanded storage, CPU, and memory resources. If you need to scale Oracle's capacity up or down, the appliance can be adjusted on-premise. When you purchase Oracle Exadata Cloud, you must acquire either a half or full rack. If you need to increase capacity, you can scale up by adding more hardware. This hardware commitment lasts four to five years, meaning you must maintain this infrastructure and continue payments for that period. While you can scale up to meet increased demands, scaling down is more challenging. I recommend the solution when the customer desires to transition to a cloud-native solution but needs to retain their data in OpenEdge due to compatibility issues or the requirement to interact with on-premise systems to minimize latency. This solution offers minimal latency and modernizes Oracle capabilities through a gateway. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In terms of stability, because Microsoft is the underlying technology, they are much more stable than say Oracle. Since 2014 they did a great job in offering stability, performance and high visibility on the solution, especially in comparison to the other competitors."

"This solution offers high availability, and business continuity is in place."

"The most valuable aspect of SQL Azure is the SQL language itself. It's open and everybody can use it at my company. Also, we thought in the beginning that the response time would be inadequate, but it's actually decent. It's much better than expected. Then again, I'm not a programmer, but that's what I hear from our development team."

"Azure SQL Database is very quick and easy to use."

"The initial setup was straightforward. We did not migrate from an existing system but implemented it from scratch and did not require Microsoft support. We were building Power Platform apps using SharePoint databases and Excel. And after that, we realized that we had to integrate it with SQL. It wasn't too hard, and our partners have people with experience."

"Microsoft Azure SQL Database is fairly easy to use and set up for our DBA teams, who use it for various applications and tools like RabbitMQ."

"SQL Azure can integrate well with other Microsoft Windows services."

"The solution is quire more stable than other tools."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pros

"The operation model is the most valuable feature."

"Performance has significantly improved."

"The most valuable feature is that it is based on Exadata infrastructure, which is Oracle 's leading engineered system that is trusted, fault-tolerant, and has unique performance features."

"I am particularly fond of the intelligent capabilities that enhance the backend, utilizing technology to analyze SQL queries."

"I like that Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer is a stable, well-positioned product in the market today, and it's very scalable."

"Exporting and importing is easy because of its cleanliness, making the process easier. However, setting up the Data Guard was more difficult. Despite this, the client experienced lower downtime."

Cons

"I would like to see integration with Snowflake."

"What would make SQL Azure better is users having the capability of managing the database solution from the cloud, instead of having to do it from an actual machine because currently, database management via SQL Azure is done on a virtual machine or a PC. The solution should have the data functionality of managing SQL databases inside the cloud."

"There are certain shortcomings when it comes to the stability of the product, especially if I consider the fact that there can always be some bug-related issues in the tool."

"If we need to deploy data management or services with SQL Azure we need InterSecure."

"In terms of improvement, making Microsoft Azure SQL Database faster would cater to big companies that require speed."

"The solution is somewhat user-friendly, but it's limited by the lack of full backward compatibility."

"The latency and availability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be problematic when connecting to an instance in a geographically distant location."

"The default 1433 port for communication should be customizable because most hacks or attacks are attempted when creating any application or database on the default port."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database cons

"A room for improvement in Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer is that they need to train more partners to gain more knowledge because currently, they are keeping a lot to themselves. For example, they are still keeping a lot of information on their campus, so information sharing is limited."

"We had some problems in the developer's environment. We had some problems with the initial installation environment."

"For the data migration, we used ZDM. It was not integrated with the databases, and the documentation lacks clarity."

"As a customer, you can't see the boot messages of your virtualized guest machines."

"Scalability is not straightforward."

"The solution is expensive."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From a licensing benefit standpoint, we have clients who are coming with their own SQL licensing with Software Assurance, and they are able to use those licenses for their Azure SQL and reduce costs."

"The pricing is flexible and can be adapted based on our requirements but the pricing options are complex especially if we are using a VM."

"I find that they are relatively expensive, especially when compared to AWS, where the prices are notably lower."

"Its price can definitely be lower. It is pretty pricey."

"There is a license required to use the solution and it cost $30 to do the installation."

"We pay less than $1000 monthly in licensing fees. There are no additional costs."

"The solution is expensive."

"I recommend considering a pay-as-you-go pricing model initially."

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database pricing and cost advice

"The price is too much."

"The machine and the cloud model itself already have licensing advantages."

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848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

72%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

36%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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?

The pricing of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap, affecting user uptake. A gradual reduction in price could improve accessibility and user numbers, making it easier for users to adopt the s...

What needs improvement with SQL Azure?

Pricing could be improved to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database ( /products/microsoft-azure-sql-database-reviews ) more accessible. A reduction in price might encourage more users and bring more pro...

What do you like most about Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer?

Exporting and importing is easy because of its cleanliness, making the process easier. However, setting up the Data Guard was more difficult. Despite this, the client experienced lower downtime.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer?

The pricing is reasonable due to a universal agreement, which often positions Oracle solutions better against others. I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten.

What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer?

Scalability is not straightforward, as you can scale up and not down. Improvements could be made to make scalability more flexible.

Google Cloud SQL vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Comparisons

Compared 42% of the time

Amazon RDS vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 26% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle Database as a Service vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 7% of the time

vCloud Air vs Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Azure SQL Database Competitors

Oracle Database as a Service vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 46% of the time

Amazon RDS vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 32% of the time

MongoDB Atlas vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 8% of the time

Google Cloud SQL vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 7% of the time

Google Cloud Spanner vs Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Compared 7% of the time

More Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Download Microsoft Azure SQL Database product report

Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer

Download Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer product report

Overview

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

Oracle Cloud@Customer brings Oracle’s complete portfolio of public cloud infrastructure, fully managed cloud services, and Oracle Fusion SaaS applications into your data center. It enables you to run applications faster and lower your costs using the same high-performance capabilities, autonomous operations, and low-cost subscription pricing in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). You get all this while maintaining complete control of your data so you can address data residency, security, and connectivity concerns.

Oracle

Sample Customers

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

IBVI, illycaffe, Scottish Water, trueblue, AirAsia, droptank

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer