Microsoft SQL Server Reviews & Product Details

What I like most about Microsoft SQL Server is its combination of power, reliability, and ease of use. It’s a robust relational database system that handles both small and massive datasets efficiently, making it suitable for everything from single applications to large enterprise solutions. I appreciate its tight integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, including Azure, Power BI, and .NET, which makes reporting, analytics, and application development seamless. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One of the main drawbacks of Microsoft SQL Server is its cost, as licensing can be expensive, especially for enterprise editions or large-scale deployments. It can also be resource-intensive, requiring substantial memory and CPU for optimal performance. While it now supports Linux, it has historically been Windows-centric, which can limit flexibility in some environments. Advanced features like Always On, replication, or partitioning are powerful but often complex to configure and maintain. Additionally, the different editions with varying feature sets can be confusing, and Microsoft’s licensing rules can sometimes be tricky to navigate, particularly in cloud or hybrid setups. Overall, SQL Server is powerful but can be costly, resource-heavy, and complex for advanced use cases. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Performance and control in large volumes of data, seamless integration with .NET / C#.

I like SQL Server because it is solid, predictable, integrates perfectly with .NET, and gives me total control when working with large data and critical processes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Be heavy on RAM and CPU, expensive licenses in production Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Strong security protection.

The embedded objects for automatic data management like triggers, task etc. Flexible sql scripts and SPs are great tools to extend the function. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It didn’t provide smart coding, need to copy/paste from schema, table name to fields. And a bit slow when query large data. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like Microsoft SQL Server's stability, performance, and strong security features. It handles transactional workloads very reliably and supports high availability with backup and recovery options. It also integrates well with enterprise applications and tools, making it a dependable choice for mission critical systems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Licensing can be expensive for enterprises. Performance tuning and query optimization require experienced DBAs, especially as data grows. Scaling very large workloads can become complex compared to some newer cloud-native databases. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I feel that ease of use and setup is key. That it's robust ability to handle large data sets and makes report running an ease. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I feel that SSMS is lacking some features that dbeaver for instance has and is taken for granted. For instance the ability to easily delete tables from a database so you can recreate them. In SSMS you have to drop the table through scripting and isn't as elegant of a solution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like Microsoft SQL Server for its 'Always On' feature, which enhances database durability and application performance by segregating read and write operations. Additionally, the SQL engine is a highlight for me. Its ability to support ASP.Net applications is great for fast transactions and speedy report retrievals. Setting it up was also easy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I find the regular expression search lacking because there are minimal wild card options unlike Oracle. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Microsoft SQL Server is pretty easy to install and configure, and is very easy to use in conjunction with using Microsoft SQL Management Studio as the database client integrated development environment (IDE). I use Microsoft SQL Server daily for my work, and it is robust and highly available in our production environment. I use the Microsoft SQL Server JDBC driver to connect to SQL Server from a Java-based application, and that driver performs well. I previously encountered a defect with a specific version of that driver, and my interaction with Microsoft customer support to get that defect fixed was perfect, providing a fix in a timely manner and back-porting the fix to a previous driver version. I also use the free edition called SQL Server Express locally on work laptop to facilitate my software development activity, and it is also easy to install, administer, and use. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Not being an open source database there are licensing costs associated with using Microsoft SQL Server depending on the features you need. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have been using it for past three years in my current organization for our client . I love the reliability even with the large dataset specially for our client base which holds thousand of data and i have to query for them and there is a daily migration which requires at least once to query a large part of it. It is also very user friendly with its shortcuts and simplified database administration Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Not much but I have to say it would b its licensing cost which can be quite high for our client . Also while i love the user friendliness it sometime feels a little slow and the learning curve is a little steep apart from that great tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I like best about Microsoft SQL Server is how reliable and user-friendly it is compared to other enterprise databases. The performance is rock solid, and the tools like SSMS make it really easy to manage even complex environments. I also love how well it integrates with Power BI and the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem — it saves a ton of time when building reports or connecting data across systems Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I dislike about Microsoft SQL Server is mainly the cost — the licensing fees for the enterprise edition are really high, which makes it harder for smaller companies to justify. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Microsoft SQL Server’s strongest asset is its seamless integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, particularly Power BI, Excel, and Azure. This makes data visualization and cloud migration significantly more efficient than with fragmented stacks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Resource intensity, platform lock-in, the cost. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.