Cassandra vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

Apache and Microsoft are both solutions in the NoSQL Databases category. Apache is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3. Apache holds a 7.9% mindshare in ND, compared to Microsoft’s 6.5% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Cassandra

Read 25 Cassandra reviews

2,307 Views
1,500 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Read 109 Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reviews

10,499 Views
2,205 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Cassandra

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Cassandra and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are popular distributed database systems. While Cassandra is favored for its affordability and open-source support, Azure Cosmos DB offers superior scalability and global distribution features, making it the more versatile choice.

Features: Cassandra provides high availability, horizontal scalability, and fault tolerance, making it ideal for large-scale real-time data processing. Azure Cosmos DB offers multi-model support, automatic scaling, and strong consistency models, with global distribution capabilities offering unparalleled flexibility.

Room for Improvement: Cassandra can be complex to deploy and manage, requiring significant expertise in configuration. Limited in its consistency models, it may not handle all types of data as efficiently. Azure Cosmos DB could improve on initial setup costs and streamlining the learning curve for users unfamiliar with its ecosystem. Enhancing documentation for advanced features could support user education.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cassandra demands extensive management, with a steep learning curve and reliance on community support for technical issues. Conversely, Azure Cosmos DB benefits from integration with the larger Azure ecosystem, offering simplified deployment and extensive customer service, thereby significantly easing setup and management efforts.

Pricing and ROI: Cassandra's open-source nature ensures lower initial costs and offers high ROI when managed adeptly. Azure Cosmos DB requires a more significant financial commitment due to its pay-as-you-go model but justifies this with comprehensive features and effective long-term ROI through seamless scalability and reduced operational overhead. While Cassandra is suitable for those prioritizing cost efficiency, Azure Cosmos DB offers greater value for organizations seeking powerful scalability and ease of use.

To learn more, read our detailed Cassandra vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cassandra vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

January 2026

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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

Cassandra

Ranking in NoSQL Databases

7th

Ranking in Vector Databases

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Ranking in NoSQL Databases

2nd

Ranking in Vector Databases

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

109

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (4th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 7.9%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 6.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NoSQL Databases Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB	6.5%
Cassandra	7.9%
Other	85.6%

NoSQL Databases

Featured Reviews

Monirul Islam Khan

Head, Data Integration & Management at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees

Has maintained secure document storage and efficient data distribution with peer-to-peer architecture

The functions or features in Cassandra that I have found most valuable are that it is a distributed system similar to Mongo. It's good enough for comparison with another SQL database, so it's smooth and organized for distributed database system. The peer-to-peer architecture in Cassandra is helpful for network decentralization, and I have already introduced that feature. Cassandra features in peer-to-peer as well as another monitoring, so basically, it's good enough for our service. The tunable consistency level in Cassandra is good, and we are using that feature already. In terms of built-in caching and lightweight transactions in Cassandra, the transaction level is good, and it's optimized, so there are no more issues in that database. Based on my experience, Cassandra is good for document management system, as well as distributed database system, and the automatic recovery process is there. Additionally, the database monitoring system or auditing system is well-comparable with other database systems, so we are actually happy to be using this Cassandra database.

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reviewer2724105

Senior Director of Product Management at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Provides super sharp latency, excellent availability, and the ability to effectively manage costs across different tenants

For integrating Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB with other Azure products or other products, there are a couple of challenges with the current system. Right now, the vectors are stored as floating-point numbers within the NoSQL document, which makes them inefficiently large. This leads to increased storage space requirements, and searching through a vast number of documents in the vector database becomes quite costly in terms of RUs. While the integration works well, the expense associated with it is relatively high. I would really like to see a reduction in costs for their vector search, as it is currently on the expensive side. The areas for improvement in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are vector pricing and vector indexing patterns, which are unintuitive and not well described. I would also like to see the parameters of Fleet Spaces made more powerful, as currently, it's somewhat lightweight. I believe they've made those changes intentionally to better understand the cost model. However, we would like to take a more aggressive approach in using it. One of the most frustrating aspects of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB right now is that you can only store one vector per document. Additionally, you must specify the configuration of that vector when you create an instance of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. Once the database is set up, you can't change the vector configuration, which is incredibly limiting for experimentation. You want the ability to try different settings and see how they perform, as there are numerous use cases for storing more than one vector in a document. While interoperability within the vector database is acceptable—for example, I can search for vectors—I still desire a richer set of configuration options.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cassandra is its fast retrieval. Additionally, the solution can handle large amounts of data. It is the quickest application we use."

"Our primary use case for the solution is testing."

"The solution's database capabilities are very good."

"Some of the valued features of this solution are it has good performance and failover."

"Its retrieval is similar to an RDBMS, so our team finds it easy to adapt."

"A consistent solution."

"The most valuable features of Cassandra are its scaling capabilities and its non-SQL nature capabilities."

"Since I haven't had years of experience with it, it's still new to me. One valuable feature is its distribution, so I can run it partly in the cloud and part on-prem. That's a feature I'd like to use but haven't yet because we're trying to move to Azure. I don't know if or when that will happen. Ideally, we'd have it distributed over the cloud and on-prem simultaneously, so if something happens to our on-prem, we can keep going in the cloud, like a pay-as-you-go model with Azure."

More Cassandra pros

"The solution is highly scalable."

"rate Azure support nine out of 10. They respond quickly and will help you manage costs. However, they mainly give you an overview of the issue, so they'll never have an in-depth idea of what you're doing. They aren't the owners of our product, so they don't know much about it, but they can ask you generally: What are you doing? Are you doing too many updates? How can we reduce the cost?"

"We value the replication and regional availability features that Cosmos DB provides. The replication includes read replicas and write replicas. The recent addition of vectorization and similarity comparisons add values for AI workloads. 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."

"I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a ten out of ten."

"It has been very efficient so far. The team has been using it for quite a while. I am new to the team, but they always talk about how efficient it is."

"The scalability and ease of use with the APIs of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB have allowed us to meet our customers' expectations pretty easily with little barrier to entry."

"The most valuable features for our organization with Azure Cosmos DB are multi-master capability for applications, automatic failover ensuring high availability, scalability, support for multiple data models, and low-latency access."

"The solution is extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pros

Cons

"The initial setup of Cassandra can be difficult in the configuration. There might be a need to have assistance. The implementation process can six months for connecting to certain databases."

"We found some issues with the batch inserts when the data volume is large."

"The solution is limited to a linear performance."

"We experience configuration issues when accommodating the volumes we require, which often necessitates consultation with the Cassandra development team."

"While Cassandra can handle NoSQL, I think there should be more flexibility for whole schema design when data is stored in wide columns. Additionally, I believe that eventual consistency should be enhanced."

"Cassandra could be more user-friendly like MongoDB."

"There could be more integration, and it could be more user-friendly."

"It can be difficult to analyze what's going on inside of the database relative to other databases. It can also be difficult to troubleshoot sometimes."

More Cassandra cons

"They can implement a better backup system or alert system on Microsoft's end. We do receive notices for regular maintenance or updates, but sudden issues create significant problems."

"A couple features that would help me in architectural solutions would be customizable architecture or customizable documentation, which both Microsoft Azure or Microsoft Teams can provide."

"There is room for improvement in terms of stability."

"In that scenario, two things can be improved."

"One of our biggest pain points is the backup and restore functionality needs improvement. They've gotten a little better in this area. SQL Server's long-term retention is amazing, and you can restore data from years ago. You need to open a support Microsoft ticket to restore your Cosmos DB backup, and it comes in on a different Cosmos account. It's just kind of a headache to restore data."

"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. They should use a static key size."

"There are no particular factors that need improvement. There is a little bit of a learning curve with scaling workloads, but it works smoothly."

"An improvement could include increasing the document size or providing a method to manage larger sets efficiently. If they want to keep a 2 MB limit, they should provide a way to chain multiple documents in a systematic way so that developers do not have to figure out what to do when a document is larger than 2 MB."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the tool's open-source version."

"Cassandra is a free open source solution, but there is a commercial version available called DataStax Enterprise."

"I don't have the specific numbers on pricing, but it was fairly priced."

"We pay for a license."

"We are using the open-source version of Cassandra, the solution is free."

"There are licensing fees that must be paid, but I'm not sure if they are paid monthly or yearly."

"Cosmos DB is cost-effective when starting but requires careful management."

"The Cosmos DB pricing model, initially quite complicated, became clear after consulting with Azure Advisor, allowing us to proceed with confidence."

"Microsoft provides fair pricing."

"It's expensive. I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing."

"Pricing is one of the solution's main features because it is based on usage, scales automatically, and is not too costly."

"Cosmos DB is a highly cost-optimized solution when used correctly."

"Cosmos should be cheaper. We actually intend to stop using it in the near future because the price is too high."

"Pricing is mid- to high-end."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Retailer

Legal Firm

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	58

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cassandra?

The use of Cassandra in real-time data analytics has been pivotal for our e-commerce platform. As our platform operates 24/7, providing services to sellers and customers alike, the need for real-ti...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cassandra?

The pricing for Cassandra is a little bit high, so it would be better for our community services if they consider community pricing for any non-profit organization like an NGO or other things. It w...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cassandra?

Regarding areas of improvement for Cassandra, currently, we are not facing significant issues. Some issues arise from our vendors like Apache slowness and distribution or load balancing from HAProx...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's pricing model has aligned with my budget expectations because I can tune the RU as I need to, which helps a lot. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's dynamic auto-scale or server...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

I have not utilized Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB multi-model support for handling diverse data types. I'm not in the position to decide if clients will use Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB or any other datab...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 11% of the time

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced vs Cassandra

Compared 11% of the time

Couchbase Enterprise vs Cassandra

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle NoSQL vs Cassandra

Compared 5% of the time

ScyllaDB vs Cassandra

Compared 5% of the time

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Pinecone vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon DynamoDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 7% of the time

Chroma vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 6% of the time

Neo4j Graph Database vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 6% of the time

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cassandra

February 2026

Download Cassandra product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

January 2026

Download Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB product report

Also Known As

No data available

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB

Overview

Cassandra is a distributed and scalable database management system used for real-time data processing.

It is highly valued for its ability to handle large amounts of data, scalability, high availability, fault tolerance, and flexible data model.

It is commonly used in finance, e-commerce, and social media industries.

Apache

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers scalable, geo-replicated, multi-model support with high performance and low latency. It provides seamless Microsoft service integration, benefiting those needing flexible NoSQL, real-time analytics, and automatic scaling for diverse data types and quick global access.

Azure Cosmos DB is designed to store, manage, and query large volumes of both unstructured and structured data. Its NoSQL capabilities and global distribution are leveraged by organizations to support activities like IoT data management, business intelligence, and backend databases for web and mobile applications. While its robust security measures and availability are strengths, there are areas for improvement such as query complexity, integration with services like Databricks and MongoDB, documentation clarity, and performance issues. Enhancements in real-time analytics, API compatibility, cross-container joins, and indexing capabilities are sought after. Cost management, optimization tools, and better support for local development also require attention, as do improvements in user interface and advanced AI integration.

What are the key features of Azure Cosmos DB?

Scalability: Effortlessly handles scaling for large workloads.
Geo-replication: Provides global data access with low latency.
Multi-model Support: Compatible with diverse data types.
NoSQL Flexibility: Offers a non-relational database experience.
Real-time Analytics: Facilitates data-driven decision-making.
Automation: Simplifies scaling and maintenance processes.

What benefits can users expect from Cosmos DB?

High Performance: Ensures rapid processing and low latency.
Ease of Use: Features a user-friendly interface enhancing deployment speed.
Seamless Integration: Connects effortlessly with Microsoft services.
Security: Offers robust measures to protect data integrity.
Consistent Availability: Ensures continuous access to data worldwide.

Industries use Azure Cosmos DB to support business intelligence and IoT data management, using its capabilities for backend databases in web and mobile applications. The platform's scalability and real-time analytics benefit sectors like finance, healthcare, and retail, where managing diverse datasets efficiently is critical.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

1. Apple 2. Netflix 3. Facebook 4. Instagram 5. Twitter 6. eBay 7. Spotify 8. Uber 9. Airbnb 10. Adobe 11. Cisco 12. IBM 13. Microsoft 14. Yahoo 15. Reddit 16. Pinterest 17. Salesforce 18. LinkedIn 19. Hulu 20. Airbnb 21. Walmart 22. Target 23. Sony 24. Intel 25. Cisco 26. HP 27. Oracle 28. SAP 29. GE 30. Siemens 31. Volkswagen 32. Toyota

TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify

Buyer's Guide

Cassandra vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

January 2026

Free Report: Cassandra vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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