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Amazon DynamoDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Amazon DynamoDB offers scalable reliability, time savings, and reduced personnel needs, though costs and financial returns depend on usage.
Sentiment score
6.7
Azure Cosmos DB offers dynamic scaling, reducing costs by up to 40%, beneficial for cloud-native applications despite complex pricing.
AWS makes money from Amazon DynamoDB, and our involvement is more about professional services engagement.
Getting an MVP of that project would have taken six to eight months, but because we had an active choice of using Azure Cosmos DB and other related cloud-native services of Azure, we were able to get to an MVP stage in a matter of weeks, which is six weeks.
You can react quickly and trim down the specs, memory, RAM, storage size, etc. It can save about 20% of the costs.
When I have done comparisons or cost calculations, I have sometimes personally seen as much as 25% to 30% savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Amazon DynamoDB support is fast and helpful, but local support and understanding specific use cases could improve.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB support receives mixed reviews; premium access and forums offer faster, more effective assistance despite inconsistencies.
They follow up on support tickets until the issue is resolved.
Technical support is quite good, with a rating of eight out of ten.
Premier Support has deteriorated compared to what it used to be, especially for small to medium-sized customers like ours.
The response was quick.
I would rate customer service and support a nine out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Amazon DynamoDB is valued for its scalability, reliability, and efficiency, accommodating diverse data loads despite configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
7.8
Azure Cosmos DB offers robust scalability, cost management, and efficient performance, making it ideal for handling global workloads.
Scalability is the most valuable feature, and I rate it a ten out of ten.
Amazon DynamoDB is highly scalable.
The system scales up capacity when needed and scales down when not in use, preventing unnecessary expenses.
We like that it can auto-scale to demand, ensuring we only pay for what we use.
We have had no issues with its ability to search through large amounts of data.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Amazon DynamoDB is considered highly reliable, with rare stability issues and excellent scaling capabilities, despite minor configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers high stability, low latency, and reliable performance, excelling in large data volume handling and redundancy.
I have not faced any issues with bugs or a breakdown in Amazon DynamoDB.
We have multiple availability zones, so nothing goes down.
Azure Cosmos DB would be a good choice if you have to deploy your application in a limited time frame and you want to auto-scale the database across different applications.
I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of availability and latency.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek better documentation, query features, user interface, encryption, automation, integration, and pricing for Amazon DynamoDB.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB needs improvements in query complexity, API compatibility, cost models, security, and performance for better user satisfaction.
The user interface could be improved to make it more intuitive.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
You have to monitor the Request Units.
The dashboard could include more detailed RU descriptions, IOPS, and compute metrics.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon DynamoDB offers flexible, cost-effective pricing, but costs may rise with large data volumes or high traffic.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, while scalable and reliable, is often seen as costly, especially for large-scale operations.
Amazon DynamoDB can be quite expensive due to regional differences, so I have to be careful with the pricing.
Initially, it seemed like an expensive way to manage a NoSQL data store, but so many improvements that have been made to the platform have made it cost-effective.
Cosmos DB is expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing.
Cosmos DB is great compared to other databases because we can reduce the cost while doing the same things.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon DynamoDB is praised for scalability, speed, cost efficiency, seamless AWS integration, and features like auto-scaling and secondary indexes.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB excels in performance, scalability, and integration, offering real-time analytics and multi-model database support for diverse needs.
Scalability has significantly enhanced data retrieval speeds.
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database known for its high performance and scalability.
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its real-time analytics capabilities, which allow for turnaround times in milliseconds.
Performance and security are valuable features, particularly when using Cosmos DB for MongoDB emulation and NoSQL.
The performance and scaling capabilities of Cosmos DB are excellent, allowing it to handle large workloads compared to other services such as Azure AI Search.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon DynamoDB
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
43
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
7.1
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (5th), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Amazon DynamoDB is 18.0%, down from 24.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 16.1%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

MohamedBouzidi - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlined data management with robust automation and easy replication
Amazon DynamoDB has been a reliable service that is very performant and meets our expectations. Its automation capacity reduces the need for more personnel, which aligns perfectly with our strategy of focusing on serverless services. The ease of data replication between regions is a significant benefit since it was already integrated into the solution.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
5%
Legal Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon DynamoDB?
The user interface could be improved to make it more intuitive. From a design and solution perspective, it's really good, but the interface always has room for enhancement.
What is your primary use case for Amazon DynamoDB?
We use Amazon DynamoDB for data lookups with the consultancy.
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?
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.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
We are at the beginning of production, and everything is working very well. The price can always be lower, but currently, it's not a problem.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Snapchat, Capital One, Expedia, Tinder, Airbnb, Comcast, Lyft, Redfin, Netflix, Adobe
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon DynamoDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.