Azure Tables or SQL Azure?

Question

I am at the planning stage of a web application that will be hosted in Azure with ASP.NET for the web site and Silverlight within the site for a rich user experience. Should I u

Answer 1

I realize this is an old question, but still a very valid one, so I'm adding my reply to it.

CoderDennis and others have pointed out some of the facts - Azure Tables is cheaper, and Azure Tables can be much larger, more efficient etc. If you are 100% sure you will stick with Azure, go with Tables.

However this assumes you have already decided on Azure. By using Azure Tables, you are locking yourself into the Azure platform. It means writing code very specific to Azure Tables that is not just going to port over to Amazon, you will have to rewrite those areas of your code. On the other hand programming for a SQL database with LINQ will port over much more easily to another cloud service.

This may not be an issue if you've already decided on your cloud platform.