Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Google Cloud Bigtable vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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

Google Cloud Bigtable
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
6
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
7.2
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Vector Databases (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Bigtable is 5.2%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 15.5%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Aakash Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Great for streaming data and being a managed service is an advantage
Our primary use case is for analytics, analyzing the data sets and curing Bigtable is very user-friendly where streaming data is required. I think it's relatively easier to use than Ascentra. The fact that it's a managed service is an advantage.   The cost of this product is too expensive.…
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

"The solution is very convenient."
"The most valuable feature is the backup and replication service."
"It's very user-friendly where streaming data is required."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Bigtable is faster than other competitors in the market. It helps us collate all the data, and the security features are great. The latency is low, and the computation speed is fantastic. Bigtable is also a managed service, so you don't have to worry about anything aside from analyzing the data ingested."
"Stability-wise, it is a simple solution. I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"It's highly scalable and supports consistency, security, and multiple security options."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its ability to handle concurrency and consistency."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers exceptional stability, boasting a reliability rating of 99.95 percent."
"The features most valuable to us in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are the auto scale and change feed. These features allow us to do some operations that are not possible with SQL Server."
"I like the scalability. There aren't any constraints for posting in the geolocation. I also like the SQL architecture."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its real-time analytics capabilities, which allow for turnaround times in milliseconds."
"Cosmos DB has helped our organization handle large amounts of data."
 

Cons

"The cost of this product is too expensive."
"Improvement should be made as per customer recommended and requirements."
"The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"When it comes to complex queries, a user can't get any help from a drop-down box and pick columns. It would be great if some improvements could be made in the aforementioned area concerning the solution."
"This product needs better security and transparency, and the price should be reduced."
"I've used Bigtable for about three or four years."
"We would like to see advancements in AI with the ability to benchmark vector search capabilities, ensuring it answers questions accurately. During our initial implementation, we faced challenges with indexing and sorting, which are natively available in other offerings but required specific configurations in Cosmos."
"The one thing that I have been working on with Microsoft with regard to this is the ability to easily split partitions and have it do high-performance cross-partition queries. That is the only place where either our data size or our throughput has grown beyond one partition, so being able to do cross-partition queries efficiently would be my number one request."
"The customer service is lacking. We have a premier support agreement, but support is hit and miss."
"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."
"A further simple application is required for Brazil."
"The initial setup was difficult."
"One area for improvement is the ease of writing SQL queries and stored procedures in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."
"Overall, it works very well and fits the purpose regardless of the target application. However, by default, there is a threshold to accommodate bulk or large requests."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing model of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a bit complex."
"Cosmos DB's pricing structure has significantly improved in recent months, both in terms of its pricing model and how charges are calculated."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is moderately priced, where it is neither expensive nor cheap."
"Its pricing is not bad. It is good."
"Microsoft provides fair pricing."
"Cost isn’t a big hurdle for us right now. The solution is not costly."
"Cosmos DB is a highly cost-optimized solution when used correctly."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed NoSQL Databases solutions are best for your needs.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
University
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Legal Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud Bigtable?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Bigtable?
The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required. In general, the performance of the product needs improvement.
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Bigtable?
When a client gives our organization a project where they need a dashboard for their company, they provide us with some data from their database, which is usually presented in Google Cloud Bigtable...
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?
Its pricing is not bad. It is good. We have a contract with Microsoft to use their technology. In my opinion, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a good option for the total cost of ownership.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I think Cosmos DB enhanced the benefits of NoSQL databases, offering query flexibility, partition management, and backup and restore options. These aspects are crucial, and perhaps improving the co...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cognite, Dow Jones, Loblaw Digital
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.