It seems it's still better to run mySQL on a VM if you're running multiple databases for smaller sites. But for single sites that need to scale, it's way better than ClearDB, which is hot garbage if you ask me.
If you're asking why I think it's still better to run a VM for multiple databases, my answer is pricing.
If you're asking why I think ClearDB is hot garbage, it's because of pricing, in ability to scale down (you literally cannot scale down ClearDB in Azure), connection limits on the DB that make no sense with the pricing, etc.
