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MySQL vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
147
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (1st)
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
266
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of MySQL is 8.4%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 21.1%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Naresh Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Lightweight and is available at a friendly price
In terms of our organization's data management strategy, especially if I talk about PLM software, which is about data management and can be regarded as the core data management of the products that we make. When we are designing something, specifically a new product, it is a critical area, especially considering that I am in the energy sector. In the energy sector, when we are building huge turbines and other things, the data might have intellectual property aspects attached to it. Even within the company, one region cannot see other regions to the extent to which the product offers security. In my company, we use PDM and PLM from Teamcenter effectively. MySQL is not a tool my company uses in production. When we create some small demos, we use MySQL. For production, we would use only Oracle because it is the most stable tool in the market. When we install Teamcenter, we don't need to touch the database. We just need to make some references to figure out this is the database, and it automatically creates everything. The basic thing about PDM and PLM systems is that the user should never touch the database because people may corrupt the data model or do anything that will have a very bad impact on the system. Database modifications only have to be made to the PLM system. We are not supposed to interact with the database directly. The tool is very lightweight, less expensive, and sometimes it is free. It is a very usable tool that is preferred by a lot of people. Only for production use, I may ask people not to use it. Integration of MySQL is like how we don't directly integrate PLM with Oracle. We have to use PLM's APIs to talk to the database. As a part of the best practices, we should not directly integrate anything with the PLM database. Feature-wise, the integration capabilities of the product are easy to use. It is like any other tool where if there is a table, there is a property. If you want to map a property using any middleware, then we can easily do that. I recommend the product to others. For medium-sized companies, MySQL is one of the best solutions. Medium-sized companies can choose not to go for Oracle, which is very expensive. In terms of the value or benefits derived by our company from the use of the product, I would say that it is not very expensive and provides performance along with scalability. The product can cater to the needs of customers ranging from 2,00,000 to 6,00,000 to 10,00,000 records. Even 20,00,000 records are fine, but after that, users may get into trouble. It is the best tool for mid-sized companies with a reasonable amount of data. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
Azizul Haque - PeerSpot reviewer
It has eliminated all kinds of inconsistencies, and it is reliable, secure, and fast
I don't know whether SQL Server can support large organizations where the database size is more than 100 GB. It might be because of SQL Server, or it might be because of the programming of the software vendor, but a lot of people think that it is a problem with SQL Server. It can't handle a large amount of data or large data size. In terms of its usage, about 90% of our applications are running on the SQL Server database. We have around 1,600 users for our software, and all the applications are connected to the SQL Server database.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a lot of features. The RDBMS, consistency, and multi-user features are valuable."
"Fully scalable and stable SQL-based RDBMS, with a straightforward and easy setup."
"The solution is great for small applications in particular."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is its ubiquity. MySQL is everywhere, so if I need to find a developer to do things to it that I don't know, it's very easy to find someone who has expertise in it."
"For sure, the solution is very stable."
"The solution helps us perform with our databases and extract data."
"The easy access to the data and the ability to sort the data with multiple methods are very valuable features."
"It has a remote access feature to manage the database from a remote location. This enables in-work collaboration."
"It's much more friendly in comparison with Oracle."
"It is a simple query language. It is consistent across all versions. If you start with an older version, move to the newer version. The same code will still work."
"I think just having everything in one centralized set of databases where there is easily managed manageable."
"Scalability, cluster ability, ease of use, ease of implementation — these are all great."
"The Always On tool improves the SQL server availability."
"The product is easy to use."
"SQL Server Profiler makes finding and debugging easy."
"There is a lot of information about the solution readily available online."
 

Cons

"The documentation is pretty weak and should be improved."
"We require more ease of use, scalability, and high availability. These are some of the critical features that we use and look for in a product. It should be easier to manage clusters. Scalability is very important for us because our projects and concurrency requirements are quite big. We also require high availability of the server, application, and other things. It should also have more performance-based features or enhancements from the performance point of view. When we divide a database, it should be able to handle the queries very fast."
"Oracle should start putting in some of the enterprise features in the standard feature. There are some key features that should be part of the standard."
"There are some issues with compatibility with Java environments that need to be improved. When Oracle bought this solution there were some driver changes that caused some issues with operations."
"I would like to have features that allow us to jump between the cloud and our on-premises system."
"The backup methods need improvement."
"The GUI interface probably can be improved. Let us say I want to see the relationships in the database. In the query analyzer, I would like to go and drop the tables and create relationships between the tables. I haven't found a feature like that in MySQL. It was a shortcoming even in SQL Server. MySQL can have more performance monitoring tools. I know Google has these tools, but within MySQL, there are not that many tools to monitor things like performance and database locking. They might be in there, and I might not be familiar enough to know where they are. I am a pretty new user of MySQL."
"As an open-source product, there isn't really any technical support available if you get into trouble or have issues."
"I would appreciate a dark theme for SQL Server Management Studio and ability to add databases with TDE enabled into availability groups."
"Analysis services have a lot of room for improvement. Basically, manageability on the available tools. They should have improved them already. They are not very efficient. My main headache is with the analysis service, and it would be really good if Microsoft developed some additional tools that are more user-friendly to manage the analysis. This is both from the perspective of management, users' roles, and performance analysis. My main wish for SQL Server would be that management tools for analysis services grow and mature a bit."
"Improvement in SQL Server should focus on lowering the high cost, especially for environments requiring extensive CPU and memory usage like data warehousing"
"Sometimes we experience issues with its stability."
"We need it to support Linux for better troubleshooting flexibility."
"As a software developer, it can be hard to do something in Oracle that is SQL Server specific, and vice-versa, sometimes."
"It could be more stable."
"For a big amount of data, when we are speaking about IoT Segments, and Big Data projects, there are performance issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft licensing for SQL Server is probably ten times more expensive. I used to work for the government, and I remember when we were looking into upgrading to the enterprise version of SQL Server 2019, the licensing was going to cost 350,000. To get the equivalent in the cloud, it was going to be about four grand to get the same processing power and everything else. With MySQL, it was going to be about 300 for the same licensing. Cost-wise, for sure, there is a huge difference. Would you prefer to pay 300 a month or 3,000 to have the same amount of data resources? You might lose a few options that you need, but it isn't worth the price difference."
"I am using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
"It's an open-source database management system that can be used free of charge."
"​Enterprise editions and support are definitely needed for the heavy users who need direct support. ​"
"It is open-source."
"When you know the setup will continue to grow, make sure you have the paid support."
"MySQL is a cheap solution."
"The tool is open source."
"We are on a monthly subscription and the price could improve. However, the price has worked out well in some deployments. The problem is you never know what kind of services been installed and you have to be in touch with many people, such as which servers are active or which are not. I did face a couple of issues in terms of subscriptions and the pricing model. They have improved over time."
"It's cheaper than Oracle."
"It is expensive."
"Currently, almost all of my machines are in Azure and I think it is the best way of licensing now (VM+software)."
"The price of SQL Server could be reduced, the license is expensive. We have an annual subscription."
"It is annual."
"The price has been going higher and higher. The market is quite price sensitive."
"This is a downside of enterprise Microsoft products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
51%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about MySQL vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.