What is Database as a Service (DBaaS)?

Database as a Service (DBaaS) is the software used to set up, operate, and scale databases in the cloud. Users can access a cloud database system without having to purchase hardware, install additional software, or even manage the database themselves. All these activities are done by the DBaaS provider, including upgrades, new software additions, availability of the database at all times, and downtime minimization. A few minutes of deployment time could replace weeks of time for development and installation work. DBaaS has been growing in popularity since it allows customers to focus on business operations and decisions. The DBaaS software will manage runtime environment, OS, middleware, servers, storage, networking capabilities, and virtualization, whereas the customer needs to manage applications and data. In an on-premise environment, a customer needs to handle all the components mentioned above. Evolution of DBaaS Companies spent their finances to get servers, storage, database management systems, and any other hardware that would be installed and located within their own data center. Along with infrastructure costs, training for IT staff on this hardware was required. Additional costs such as maintenance and licensing all led to a very high total cost of ownership (TCO) for the vendor. Companies were so busy focusing on developing their data centers that several ended up forgetting the reasons they were installed in the first place—to streamline business processes and make data-driven decisions. IT administrators would take a long time to troubleshoot and fix errors, and these would often cause downtimes and delays affecting the entire business. Considering these exorbitant costs, SME or SMBs would find it extremely difficult to invest in such requirements. As these issues grew along with the time and cost, companies realized a need for a more efficient process in place. The focus was now on automating tasks—virtualization, containerization, and several other technologies grew significantly. Finally, with the advent of cloud computing databases being offered as a service not only by some of the largest cloud providers (such as Amazon Relational Database Service, IBM Db2, Azure SQL Database, and Google Cloud Firestore) but also on-premises database management system providers, people realized the importance of cloud. What Does DBaaS Stand For? DBaaS stands for Database as a Service. DBaaS is also known as managed database service. Usage of a DBaaS software means that there is no need for a user to deploy a database management system (DBMS) on premises since it is a managed service. It uses all the benefits of cloud computing to ensure that the user has low to zero initial infrastructure costs.

What are the Common Features of Database as a Service (DBaaS)?

The following are some core features within the DBaaS that can help users in several ways: Automation: Database administration, access control, monitoring, and several other tasks are completely automated. The customers do not need to concern themselves with these tasks, since they are designed in a manner that the machine itself will automatically execute all tasks without any human intervention. Self-service capabilities: Since the DBaaS software is fully automated, admin tasks can be automated as well. These tasks can be scheduled to support different database activities. DBaaS providers will support numerous automated tasks such as OS and kernel updates, back-up scheduling and restoration, software patching, and built-in replication among others. On-demand usage: Users can opt for the DBaaS as per requirement, and it only takes a couple of minutes to set up. There are overall IT savings since the customer will only pay as per usage. Dynamic: The DBaaS software is a flexible platform and will use the resources available as required. It will tailor itself to match the user's environment needs. True high availability (HA) and resilience: DBaaS systems need to show true HA so that the system is dependable enough to continuously work without any errors. For a DBaaS system, HA means that users can run several critical applications and workloads without having to worry about a database failing or becoming unavailable due to any failure.

What are the Benefits of Database as a Service (DBaaS)?

Some of the key benefits of DBaaS software is provided below: Low initial costs: Since the customer does not need to invest in any hardware, there are no upfront costs associated with database technologies. In addition, the customer does not need to purchase additional database management systems if the need for scaling arrives. The customer only needs to pay a subscription fee for using the DBaaS software which is determined by the resources being consumed. In case a customer needs to purchase additional capacity in the future, they can just opt to subscribe for the same or add additional features to their subscription pricing plan. Scalability: Since the customer would not own the hardware itself, the DBaaS software vendor will provide the customer with a flexible and scalable infrastructure to scale up or down based on their database needs. A customer can scale down the number of resources being used during off-peak times, and increase its resources during high-peak requirements. This benefit is also very useful when we consider very large datasets or big data applications. Reduced risk complexities: When creating a DBaaS service level agreement (SLA), the cloud computing provider needs to ensure that the customer will be provided a certain amount of uptime. In case this fails, the customer can be compensated for the same. Supports configurability: Most of the DBaaS providers provide numerous options for customers to configure their DBaaS as per their database. Since there are several different types of databases, this configurability feature is a must to ensure the quality of the DBMS process. Lower admin costs: Since there is no hardware owned by the customer, there is no requirement for a database management team to handle it. Most of the operations are handled by the DBaaS provider and customers can choose what they prefer to control. IT staff can refocus their time on working on other applications, software, and workloads. Improved time to market: When using an on-premises database, development teams usually raise a ticket to their IT teams to provide some information which could take days. But with DBaaS software, developers can also be allowed to access the DBaaS capabilities, and download their required data or information in a matter of minutes. Security: Since cloud providers have their own strong and secure encryption and security methods to ensure that customer data is safe on the cloud, these security features are extended to a DBaaS customer as well. DBaaS software providers will also take care of any government compliance data regulations such as HIPAA.

Page 3 | Best Database as a Service (DBaaS) Providers: User Reviews from November 2026

CockroachDB

Overview Cockroach Labs is the creator of CockroachDB, the cloud-native, resilient, distributed SQL database enterprises worldwide trust to run mission-critical AI and other applications that scale fast, avert and survive disaster, and thrive everywhere. It runs on the Big 3 clouds, on prem, and in hybrid configurations powering Fortune 500, Forbes Global 2000, and Inc. 5000 brands, and game-changing innovators, including OpenAI, CoreWeave, Adobe, NETFLIX, Booking.com, DoorDash, FANDUEL, Cisco Systems, P&G, UiPath, FORTINET, Roblox, EA, BestBuy, SpaceX, NVIDIA, The VA, Squarespace, The Home Depot, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Cockroach Labs has customers in 40+ countries across all world regions, 25+ verticals, and 50+ Use Cases. Cockroach Labs operates its own ISV Partner Ecosystem powering Payments, Identity Management (IDM/IAM), Banking & Wallet, Trading, and other high-demand use cases. Cockroach Labs is an AWS Partner of the Year finalist and has achieved AWS Competency Partner certifications in Data & Analytics and Financial Services (FSI). CockroachDB pricing is available at https://www.cockroachlabs.com/pricing/ Vector, RAG, and GenAI Workloads CockroachDB includes native support for the VECTOR data type and pgvector API compatibility, enabling storage and retrieval of high-dimensional embeddings. These vector capabilities are critical for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines and GenAI workloads that rely on similarity search and contextual embeddings. By supporting distributed vector indexing within the database itself, CockroachDB removes the need for external vector stores and allows AI applications to operate against a single, consistent data layer. C-SPANN Distributed Indexing At the core of CockroachDB’s vector search capabilities is the C-SPANN indexing engine. C-SPANN provides scalable approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search across billions of vectors while supporting incremental updates, real-time writes, and partitioned indexing. This ensures low-latency retrieval in the tens of milliseconds, even under high query throughput. The algorithm eliminates central coordinators, avoids large in-memory structures, and leverages CockroachDB’s sharding and replication to deliver scale, resilience, and global consistency. Machine Learning and Apache Spark Integration CockroachDB integrates with modern ML workflows by supporting embeddings generated through frameworks such as AWS Bedrock and Google Vertex AI. Its compatibility with the PostgreSQL JDBC driver allows seamless integration with Apache Spark, enabling distributed processing and advanced analytics on CockroachDB data. PostgreSQL Compatibility and JSON Support CockroachDB speaks the PostgreSQL wire protocol, so applications, drivers, and tools designed to work with Postgres can connect to CockroachDB without modification, enabling seamless use of familiar SQL features and integration with the wider Postgres ecosystem. This includes support for advanced data types such as JSON and JSONB, which allow developers to store and query semi-structured data natively. Geospatial and Graph Capabilities CockroachDB also provides first-class geospatial data support, allowing developers to store, query, and analyze spatial data directly in SQL. For graph workloads, CockroachDB employs JSON flexibility to represent relationships and delivers query capabilities for graph-like traversals. This combination enables hybrid applications that merge relational, geospatial, document, and graph data within a single platform. Analytics, BI, and Integration To support high-performance analytics and BI, CockroachDB supports core analytical use cases and functions including Enterprise Data Warehouse, Lakehouse, and Event Analytics, and offers materialized views for precomputing complex joins and aggregations. Its PostgreSQL wire compatibility ensures direct connectivity with all relevant BI and analytics apps and tools including Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, Kafka, Google BigQuery, Salesforce Tableau, Databricks, Cognos, Looker, Grafana, Power BI, Qlik Sense, SAP, SAS, Sisense, and TIBCO Spotfire. Data scientists can interact with CockroachDB through Jupyter Notebooks, querying structured and semi-structured data and loading results for analysis. Change data capture (CDC) streams provide real-time updates to analytics pipelines and feature stores, keeping downstream systems fresh and reliable. Columnar vectorized execution accelerates query processing, optimizes transactional throughput, and minimizes latency for demanding distributed workloads. MOLT AI-Powered Migration Organizations often know their data infrastructure is not supporting the business, but find it too painful to change. CockroachDB’s MOLT (Migrate Off Legacy Technology) is designed to enable safe, minimal-downtime database migrations from legacy systems to CockroachDB. MOLT Fetch supports data migration from PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, and Oracle, with SQL Server and DB2 coming soon. CockroachDB also has a portfolio of data replication platform integrations including Precisely, Striim, Qlik, Confluent, IBM, etc. Together, these capabilities ensure that CockroachDB supports both operational and analytical workloads, bridging traditional SQL applications with emerging Gen AI and ML use cases.

Average Rating: 4.3/5.0

Total Reviews: 27

How Do G2 Users Rate CockroachDB?

Application Performance: 8.5/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10)
Ease of Use: 8.9/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10)
Scalability: 8.7/10 (Category avg: 9.0/10)
Provisioning: 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10)

Who Is the Company Behind CockroachDB?

Seller: Cockroach Labs
Year Founded: 2015
HQ Location: New York, NY
LinkedIn® Page: www.linkedin.com
724 employees on LinkedIn®

Who Uses This Product?

Top Industries: Computer Software, Information Technology and Services
Company Size: 55% Small, 34% Medium

What Do G2 Reviewers Say About CockroachDB?

AI-generated summary from verified user reviews

Pros

Users value the ease of managing distributed SQL databases with CockroachDB, enjoying its reliability and seamless integration.
Users appreciate the ease of use of CockroachDB, highlighting its simplicity and familiar SQL interface.
Users value the performance and scalability of CockroachDB, ensuring reliable operation and low latency for their applications.
Users appreciate the automatic scalability of CockroachDB, allowing seamless handling of large data without stress.
Users appreciate CockroachDB's seamless big data handling, ensuring reliability and performance without complexity.

Cons

Users find the learning curve steep, especially for beginners, due to its complexity in configuration and optimization.
Users find the configuration complexity of CockroachDB challenging, particularly for beginners navigating its powerful features.
Users find the difficult learning curve of CockroachDB challenging, especially when configuring and optimizing for performance.
Users note the feature limitations of CockroachDB, especially regarding complexity and maturity compared to traditional databases.
Users find the complexity and steep learning curve of CockroachDB challenging, particularly for beginners and optimization.

What Are Recent G2 Reviews of CockroachDB?

"Reliable, Scalable, and Developer-Friendly Database"

Rating: 5.0/5.0 stars

— Ranit D.

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