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Amazon Neptune 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Neptune
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
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 Neptune is 10.4%, down from 14.7% 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

Sachin Mhetre - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient real-time fraud detection with integrated debugging support
So, I'm not using it currently, but when I was working with my last organization, which was a gaming company, we used Amazon Neptune for real-time fraud detection. We maintained user data, mobile device data, and other information as graph data. These vertices and the connections between them…
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

"Relational databases are never good at identifying patterns in graphs or other similar relationships, whereas Amazon Neptune is."
"The initial setup is actually simple."
"We achieved a strong return on investment."
"The querying language and the SDKs they've provided over the years have been phenomenal, giving us a significant advantage."
"Cosmos is preferred because of its speed, robustness, and utilization. We have all the merchandising information in Cosmos DB, which provides concrete and optimized data when searching for new products on the site. It is faster than other relational databases."
"The autoscale feature is the most useful for us."
"The most valuable aspect of Cosmos DB is its performance."
"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."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers exceptional stability, boasting a reliability rating of 99.95 percent."
"It works reasonably fast. You can retain the original format of the document as received by the third-party system."
 

Cons

"In my scenario, the integration wasn't easy because ................in Java."
"Amazon Neptune could improve by spreading more awareness for others to have an understanding of the solution because the technology is fairly new. The developer community and larger community do not understand it yet."
"There should be a simpler way for data migration."
"The size of the continuation token in Azure Cosmos DB should be static rather than increasing with more data, as it can lead to application crashes."
"It would be ideal if we could integrate Cosmos DB with our Databricks. At this point, that's not possible."
"There aren't any specific areas that need improvement, but if there were a way to achieve the right cosine similarity score without extensive testing, that would be very beneficial."
"A limitation in Azure Cosmos DB is the 2 MB document size. Developers need more systemic support in chaining multiple documents if more than 2 MB is required."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"It doesn't support all databases."
"A further simple application is required for Brazil."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS are on par for pricing and Google has been raising its prices."
"Its pricing structure is quite flexible."
"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."
"Everything could always be cheaper. I like that Cosmos DB allows us to auto-scale instead of pre-provisioning a certain capacity. It automatically scales to the demand, so we only pay for what we consume."
"Pricing, at times, is not super clear because they use the request unit (RU) model. To manage not just Azure Cosmos DB but what you are receiving for the dollars paid is not easy. It is very abstract. They could do a better job of connecting Azure Cosmos DB with the value or some variation of that."
"The pricing and licensing model was initially difficult to understand, but as soon as I learned what was going on and how it was priced, it was pretty easy."
"Cosmos DB is a highly cost-optimized solution when used correctly."
"Because of the lack of understanding about RUs, the costs become unpredictable. It sometimes goes over the budget."
"The pricing for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is good. 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
20%
Construction Company
6%
University
6%
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
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Neptune?
When taken as part of the whole AWS contract, it was cheaper, but as a single service, Neptune was more expensive compared to Neo4j.
What needs improvement with Amazon Neptune?
Some improvements could be made by introducing a UI that would clearly show the vertices and connections, which would make it easier to visualize and debug. Additionally, the need for downtime duri...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Neptune?
So, I'm not using it currently, but when I was working with my last organization, which was a gaming company, we used Amazon Neptune for real-time fraud detection. We maintained user data, mobile d...
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

Intuit, Pearson, Samsung, Ignition One, Lifeomic, Blackfynn, Paysense
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Neptune vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.