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Google Cloud Spanner vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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 Spanner
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
NoSQL Databases (2nd), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Spanner is 6.4%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 4.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB4.1%
Google Cloud Spanner6.4%
Other89.5%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

LJ
System Architect at UST Global España
Offers good performance to users
The tool lacks to offer AI features. In the future, I would like the product to offer AI features to users. Nowadays, we are creating small acronyms for our SQL Server. We put some templates. If I just put your name and stop it, the entire cloud can be explored, but such features are not there in Google Cloud Spanner. As a layman rather than a developer, if I create a tool or a procedure. If I write a procedure and then when you describe a procedure, a dummy procedure will be written for you, and it will be available for you as a template in SQL Server, but such kind features are not there in Google Cloud Spanner.
reviewer2724105 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 the solution is its scalability. Scalability comes with two options, among which Google Cloud Spanner can scale horizontally, compared to other relational databases that scale vertically."
"The application deployment in the cloud is the best feature of the infrastructure."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"We can scale the solution if we need to."
"Google Cloud Spanner is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Cosmos DB is its scalability. That is the biggest reason I use Azure Cosmos DB."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its ability to handle concurrency and consistency."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB has helped to improve efficiency, providing good response times and allowing the storage of AI process results, which is crucial for feedback loops."
"The most valuable aspect of Cosmos DB is its performance."
"I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a ten out of ten."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers the response times needed for advanced analytics applications."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB has reduced our total cost of ownership by about half, allowing us to sell our product for about half of what we were selling it before, and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is probably 70% of the reason why that's true."
"Cosmos is preferred because of its speed, robustness, and utilization."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to improve horizontal scaling."
"Google came up with something called Cloud Spanner Emulator, which fails to work like the real product if I want to develop some code and run a database locally on my machine."
"I want to improve the deployment of cameras and surveillance infrastructure."
"The cost can be a bit high."
"The tool lacks to offer AI features."
"To show this in real time, we need a live connection that automatically updates in response to new records being inserted. This automated updating feature is lacking in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB compared to Databricks."
"The tool's pricing is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"If we have a lot of data, doing a real-time vector search is a performance challenge because the search happens over a large dataset. It consumes more time."
"The operational complexity of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can be challenging for individuals who are not tech-savvy."
"One of the most frustrating aspects of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB right now is that you can only store one vector per document."
"There are no specific areas I believe need improvement as I am happy with what I am getting currently. However, I am open to new features in future versions, like possibly integrating AI features natively into Cosmos DB. Any improvement would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side."
"Google Cloud Spanner is an expensive solution."
"It is expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"Pricing is mid- to high-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."
"Cosmos should be cheaper. We actually intend to stop using it in the near future because the price is too high."
"The Cosmos DB pricing model, initially quite complicated, became clear after consulting with Azure Advisor, allowing us to proceed with confidence."
"Azure is a pay as you go subscription."
"The customer had a high budget, but it turned out to be a little bit cheaper than what they expected. I am not sure how much they have spent so far, but they are satisfied with the pricing."
"The solution is a bit on the expensive side."
"Cosmos DB's pricing structure has significantly improved in recent months, both in terms of its pricing model and how charges are calculated."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
10%
Media Company
8%
Legal Firm
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Spanner?
Google Cloud Spanner has all the features of a traditional relational database, including schemas, SQL queries, ACID transactions, and provides excellent integration and monitoring tools as well as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Spanner?
Price-wise, I heard that Google Cloud Spanner is on the higher side. I am not sure if this is a rumor or if it's fake news, but I believe that having BigQuery and GCP together could be a little cos...
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Spanner?
The tool lacks to offer AI features. In the future, I would like the product to offer AI features to users. Nowadays, we are creating small acronyms for our SQL Server. We put some templates. If I ...
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?
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Google Spanner
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Streak, Optiva, Mixpanel
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Spanner vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.