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Elastic Search 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
6.4
Elastic Search offers high ROI, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, with significant time-saving and security benefits despite some licensing costs.
Sentiment score
6.7
Azure Cosmos DB offers dynamic scaling, reducing costs by up to 40%, beneficial for cloud-native applications despite complex pricing.
We have not purchased any licensed products, and our use of Elastic Search is purely open-source, contributing positively to our ROI.
It is stable, and we do not encounter critical issues like server downtime, which could result in data loss.
The main benefits observed from using Elastic Search include improvements in operational efficiency, along with cost, time, and resource savings.
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
6.5
Elastic Search's customer service is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, but complex issue support may require improvement.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB support receives mixed reviews; premium access and forums offer faster, more effective assistance despite inconsistencies.
I would rate technical support from Elastic Search as three 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
7.3
Elastic Search is scalable and integrates well, but challenges exist with large datasets and disaster recovery under rapid scaling.
Sentiment score
7.8
Azure Cosmos DB offers robust scalability, cost management, and efficient performance, making it ideal for handling global workloads.
I would rate its scalability a ten.
I can actually add more storage and memory because I host it in the cloud.
I would rate the scalability of Elasticsearch as an eight.
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
7.7
Elastic Search is stable and reliable, though version updates and data management can affect performance under stress.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers high stability, low latency, and reliable performance, excelling in large data volume handling and redundancy.
The data transfer sometimes exceeded the bandwidth limits without proper notification, which caused issues.
The stability of Elasticsearch was very high.
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

Elastic Search needs improvements in security, scalability, usability, stability, integration, support, and enhanced features for a better user experience.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB needs improvements in query complexity, API compatibility, cost models, security, and performance for better user satisfaction.
This can create problems for new developers because they have to quickly switch to another version.
It is primarily based on Unix or Linux-based operating systems and cannot be easily configured in Windows systems.
The consistency and stability of Elasticsearch are commendable, and they should keep up the good work.
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

Elastic Search's free open-source version can incur back-end costs for advanced features, expertise, and premium support.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, while scalable and reliable, is often seen as costly, especially for large-scale operations.
We used the open-source version of Elasticsearch, which was free.
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

Elastic Search is valued for scalability, fast indexing, powerful analysis, security features, cloud readiness, and strong community support.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB excels in performance, scalability, and integration, offering real-time analytics and multi-model database support for diverse needs.
Elastic Search makes handling large data volumes efficient and supports complex search operations.
The most valuable feature of Elasticsearch was the quick search capability, allowing us to search by any criteria needed.
Aggregation is faster than querying directly from a database, like Postgres or Vertica.
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

Elastic Search
Ranking in Vector Databases
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Indexing and Search (1st), Cloud Data Integration (9th), Search as a Service (1st)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Vector 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), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Vector Databases category, the mindshare of Elastic Search is 4.7%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 4.0%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vector Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Captures data from all other sources and becomes a MOM aka monitoring of monitors
Scalability and ROI are the areas they have to improve. Their license terms are based on the number of cores. If you increase the number of cores, it becomes very difficult to manage at a large scale. For example, if I have a $3 million project, I won't sell it because if we're dealing with a 10 TB or 50 TB system, there are a lot of systems and applications to monitor, and I have to make an MOM (Mean of Max) for everything. This is because of the cost impact. Also, when you have horizontal scaling, it's like a multi-story building with only one elevator. You have to run around, and it's not efficient. Even the smallest task becomes difficult. That's the problem with horizontal scaling. They need to improve this because if they increase the cores and adjust the licensing accordingly, it would make more sense.
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
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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 do you like most about ELK Elasticsearch?
Logsign provides us with the capability to execute multiple queries according to our requirements. The indexing is very high, making it effective for storing and retrieving logs. The real-time anal...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ELK Elasticsearch?
We used the open-source version of Elasticsearch, which was free.
What needs improvement with ELK Elasticsearch?
It would be useful if a feature for renaming indices could be added without affecting the performance of other features. However, overall, the consistency and stability of Elasticsearch are already...
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

Elastic Enterprise Search, Swiftype, Elastic Cloud
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Adobe, Booking.com, BMW, Telegraph Media Group, Cisco, Karbon, Deezer, NORBr, Labelbox, Fingerprint, Relativity, NHS Hospital, Met Office, Proximus, Go1, Mentat, Bluestone Analytics, Humanz, Hutch, Auchan, Sitecore, Linklaters, Socren, Infotrack, Pfizer, Engadget, Airbus, Grab, Vimeo, Ticketmaster, Asana, Twilio, Blizzard, Comcast, RWE and many others.
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Search vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.