Azure SQL Database
Shares rank 13 of 15 managed databases by recommenders
Recommended for its managed backup and restore, including recovery of deleted databases within a window. Critics say performance is weak for the price and that data is hard to move out.
Recommended for its managed backup and restore, including recovery of deleted databases within a window. Critics say performance is weak for the price and that data is hard to move out.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 45%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Strong backup and restore
“Azure keeps deleted SQL databases recoverable for a window so I got it back in under an hour.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of whole drive” “it has a very good, tried and tested backup/restore scenarios”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Two billion email addresses were exposed” “Azure keeps deleted SQL databases recoverable”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Writing a good Claude.md” Deleted databases recoverable for a window
“Azure keeps deleted SQL databases recoverable for a window so I got it back in under an hour.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of whole drive” “Azure keeps deleted SQL databases recoverable”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Writing a good Claude.md”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow performance despite high cost
“I sometimes balk at the performance we get out of AzureSQL given what we pay for it”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “We cut our Mongo DB costs by 90% by moving to Hetzner” “The fully managed SQL has terrible performance unless you drop many thousands a month.”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Go ahead, self-host Postgres” “SQL feels like overkill that will be too slow and cost you too much”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Two billion email addresses were exposed” Hard to move data out
“Getting out of something like a MSSQL hyper scale instance is simply not possible without switching to a different SQL provider”
Comment from 31 Jan 2026 in “Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native” “was carefully designed to be a tarpit into which you can import your data, but can't get your data back out”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “An AI agent deleted our production database. The agent's confession is below” Expensive at Hyperscale tiers
“a week of 80 vCores of SQL Hyperscale, which is about $6,000 at PayG rates!”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Two billion email addresses were exposed” “SQL feels like overkill that will be too slow and cost you too much”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Two billion email addresses were exposed”
Other managed databases people recommend
The four most recommended other managed databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon RDS | 50 | 43 | 54% | 11 | — | — |
| Neon Postgres | 48 | 10 | 83% | 12 | — | Approved |
| DynamoDB | 46 | 31 | 60% | 11 | — | — |
| Cloudflare D1 | 36 | 30 | 55% | 10 | — | — |
| Azure SQL DatabaseThis page | 5 | 6 | 45% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the costs means they were reluctant to have too many environments and ones of the same size”
“still some fun limits in Azure SQL. Like you can't take the databases offline or pause the service.”
“was carefully designed to be a tarpit into which you can import your data, but can't get your data back out”
“until enough companies complained about losing their data and their backups with a single action”
“Getting out of something like a MSSQL hyper scale instance is simply not possible without switching to a different SQL provider”
“I'm paying $10/month since 2012 and happy.”
“The fully managed SQL has terrible performance unless you drop many thousands a month.”
“Azure keeps deleted SQL databases recoverable”
“Azure keeps deleted SQL databases recoverable for a window so I got it back in under an hour.”
“It's probably the only service in Azure that I would actually use.”
“I sometimes balk at the performance we get out of AzureSQL given what we pay for it”
“it has a very good, tried and tested backup/restore scenarios”
“a week of 80 vCores of SQL Hyperscale, which is about $6,000 at PayG rates!”
“Definitely the wrong technology, and was almost certainly picked only because Troy Hunt is a "Microsoft Regional Director and MVP".”
“SQL feels like overkill that will be too slow and cost you too much”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.