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Amazon DocumentDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon DocumentDB
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Amazon DocumentDB is 9.1%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 16.3%, down from 17.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Rubens Oliveira - PeerSpot reviewer
User appreciates ease of administration and cost-efficiency while highlighting performance challenges and tuning limitations
Amazon DocumentDB is a nice product when used for smaller registers about websites or when tabular information is needed. However, when you need more volume or more registers, it becomes complicated because the performance adjustments and tuning are challenging. It's very complicated because there aren't many parameters to adjust, and query optimization is difficult due to limited options. You only have methods and index creation available. Many customers tell me, 'I don't have another way. I need to change the instance type or add another node.'
MichaelJohn - PeerSpot reviewer
Very efficient for application-facing scenarios
There are several areas for improvement. Firstly, having a local development emulator or simulator for Azure Cosmos DB would be beneficial. It would be very handy to have a Docker container that developers can use locally. Although, I know there is a free tier and so on and so forth, having a local environment would be nice. For example, SQL Server is very portable. You can even install it on your machine. That is the number one thing that is missing in Azure Cosmos DB. The second improvement area is the IDE of choice. That means how you interact with Azure Cosmos DB. For example, with SQL Server, you have SQL Server Management Studio. I know there is a little bit of support for Azure Cosmos DB in Azure Data Studio, but it is not heavily advertised or it does not feel like first-class citizen support. Developer experience or developer tooling is missing in terms of interacting with the database. Better developer tools or an IDE for interacting with Azure Cosmos DB would enhance the developer experience. Lastly, there is some mixed messaging about what Azure Cosmos DB is, given its multiple APIs. There are so many Azure Cosmos DB APIs available. There is NoSQL. There are MongoDB, Gremlin, and others. There is still some mixed messaging for others who are new to Azure Cosmos DB about what Azure Cosmos DB is. Is this like MongoDB, but then there is also MongoDB in Azure Cosmos DB? I know it well, and I know that the default one is just NoSQL, but others I have interacted with over the last ten years or so get confused.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Migrations are easy using this product."
"There are many benefits to using Amazon DocumentDB, for example, regarding the price, you can start with a small database and when you need more performance, you can grow the database."
"Its speed has had the most significant impact on our projects. For starters, we used it for its flexibility. With DocumentDB, you're not tied to a rigid structure like you are with Aurora or other relational databases. This makes it great for startups."
"Amazon DocumentDB is a simple solution."
"The product has a lot of useful features that are there and ready to use, it's also very easy to use."
"Cosmos DB has helped our organization handle large amounts of data."
"Cosmos is a PaaS, so you don't need to worry about infrastructure and hosting. It has various APIs that allow it to integrate with other solutions. For example, we are using a MongoDB-compatible API for customers, which makes it easier for developers on the team who previously used MongoDB or are accustomed to the old document storage paradigm."
"Its wide support to the ecosystem is valuable. We can use this database with a lot of use cases, and that's one of the reasons why we prefer it. We have a lot of vendors, databases, and use cases, and wherever possible, we are trying to standardize databases. It is also secure."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB include the TTL, the ability to scale up and down as needed, and geo-replication, which comes out of the box."
"The best feature about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its interface, which is awesome for accessing data."
"The latency and availability of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are fantastic."
"The most valuable aspect of Cosmos DB is its performance."
 

Cons

"However, when you need more volume or more registers, it becomes complicated because the performance adjustments and tuning are challenging."
"The technical support could be improved."
"There's a bit of a learning curve at the beginning."
"One possible improvement could be a hybrid database solution, where parts of the application leverage a relational database alongside DocumentDB. If a system were heavily relational in nature, a database like PostgreSQL might be a good fit."
"The query searching functionality has some complexities and could be more user-friendly. Improvements in this area would be very helpful."
"If we have a lot of data, doing a real-time vector search is a performance challenge because the search happens over a large dataset. It consumes more time."
"One of the primary challenges with Cosmos DB as a non-relational data store is the careful data modeling required due to the lack of collection-level joins when using the SQL API."
"One area of improvement for Cosmos database is the auto-scaling of RUs during high loads. It would be beneficial if the database could automatically scale resources rather than requiring manual adjustments."
"The support tickets are not cheap."
"It should offer a simple user interface for querying Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."
"Continuing to educate customers on how they can take better advantage of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB without having to completely rewrite their entire application paradigm would be beneficial."
"The cost can sometimes be high, especially during cross-partition queries with large data amounts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"If you are a small organization or startup building from scratch without the Microsoft Startup Founder Club support, it could be expensive."
"We are not consuming so much yet since we are at the beginning of using this solution. I would rate the pricing of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a six out of ten."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing is based on RUs. Reading 1 KB document costs one RU, whereas writing one document costs five RUs. Pricing for querying depends on the complexity of the query. If you increase the document size, it will automatically increase the RU cost."
"It is cost-effective. They offer two pricing models. One is the serverless model and the other one is the vCore model that allows provisioning the resources as necessary. For our pilot projects, we can utilize the serverless model, monitor the usage, and adjust resources as needed."
"With heavy use, like a large-scale IoT implementation, you could easily hit a quarter of a million dollars a month in Azure charges if Cosmos DB is a big part of it."
"Its price is very good for the basic stuff. When you go to a more complicated use case, especially when you need replication and availability zones, it gets a little costly."
"This cost model is beneficial because it allows for cost control by limiting resource units (RUs), which is ideal. However, for our needs, we can't engage with their minimum pricing, which ranges from 100 to 1,000 RUs. At the bare minimum, we need to use 4,000 RUs for a customer. I would like to find a way to gain some advantages from the lowest tier, particularly the ability to scale down if necessary. It would be helpful to have more flexibility in cost management at the lower end."
"Cosmos DB is expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing. Although they have a serverless layer, there are deficiencies in what I can define and assign to a database. Estimating infrastructure needs is not straightforward, making it challenging to manage costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Legal Firm
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering Amazon DocumentDB?
Amazon DocumentDB offers us many useful features. It is definitely a solution that an organization in need of comprehensive and effective document management should invest its money into. We are im...
What do you like most about Amazon DocumentDB?
Its speed has had the most significant impact on our projects. For starters, we used it for its flexibility. With DocumentDB, you're not tied to a rigid structure like you are with Aurora or other ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon DocumentDB?
The specific DocumentDB implementation we use is on the expensive side. We tend to use it strategically in complex systems, primarily for lookup capabilities. For simpler use cases, we often choose...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
The initial setup is simple and straightforward. You can set up a Cosmos DB in a day, even configuring things like availability zones around the world.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
The pricing for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is good, but there is a developer factor to consider. It could be economical or expensive depending on usage. Guidance about query consumption of Request U...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
The only area Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can improve on is its documentation; while it is solid and very useful, enhancements in the indexing documentation would help users save costs and make it mo...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Finra, The Washington Post, Freshop
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon DocumentDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.