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InfluxDB 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

InfluxDB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Non-Relational Databases (3rd), Open Source Databases (12th), Network Monitoring Software (52nd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (45th)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of InfluxDB is 9.7%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 3.3%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

PedroCampos - PeerSpot reviewer
A powerful, lightweight time series database with a simple query language and easy setup
Influx has TICK Stack, which contains multiple services and multiple products that work together. InfluxDB is just a time series database, and it works really well. I haven't yet had the time to look into the new stack based on Influx 2.0, but currently, as a time series database, InfluxDB is working the way it is supposed to work. In terms of features that I would like to see or have, in the community version, some features are not available. I would like to have clustering and authentication in the community version. I would also like to have high availability features, such as replication, active-active, etc. If they can put an extra plugin or service on top of it, it would be something interesting. I am not sure if they have high availability to make it data center-aware for clustering. For example, I am not sure whether you can have it at different locations with big clusters that are location-aware. Even in their documentation or presentation, they talk too little about high availability and extended clusters with different locations. They might already have it in the newer versions. We have Influx 1.8 in our production in the stage and internal workloads environments. The other products in their ecosystem, such as Chronograf, can be improved. Chronograf is a dashboarding or visualization layer product, and that, for sure, can be improved.
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 powerful."
"In our case, it started with a necessity to fill the gap that we had in monitoring. We had very reactive monitoring without trend analysis and without some advanced features. We were able to implement them by using a time series database. We are able to have all the data from applications, logs, and systems, and we can use a simple query language to correlate all the data and make things happen, especially with monitoring. We could more proactively monitor our systems and our players' trends."
"The platform operates very quickly. It is easy to configure, connect, and query and integrates seamlessly with Grafana."
"The most valuable features are aggregating the data and integration with Graphana for monitoring."
"InfluxDB is a database where you can insert data. However, it would be best if you had different components for alerting, data sending, and visualization. You need to install tools to collect data from servers. It must be installed on Windows or Linux servers. During installation, ensure that the configuration file is correct to prevent issues. Once data is collected, it can be sent to InfluxDB. For visualization, you can use open-source tools like Grafana."
"InfluxDB's best feature is that it's a cloud offering. Other good features include its time-series DB, fast time-bulk queries, and window operations."
"The most valuable features of InfluxDB are the documentation and performance, and the good plugins metrics in the ecosystem."
"While I would rate InfluxDB a ten on a scale of one to ten, users should be thoughtful about matching the engine to their specific needs."
"I would recommend Cosmos. It made our lives a lot easier. There's not a big learning curve in order to understand the structure and how to use it."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is fast, and its performance is good compared to normal SQL DB."
"The solution is used because we get faster response times with large data sets than with SQL."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is very fast. Data retrieval and data storage are very quick."
"Cosmos DB is a document database that stores data in JSON format for faster retrieval of unstructured data. I personally appreciate the speed, which is significantly better for unstructured data, especially since Cosmos DB had JSON as a data type early on."
"One of the nice features is the ability to auto-scale"
"The high speed of Azure Cosmos DB compared to other competitors is remarkable."
"The connectors, such as the MongoDB connector and the integration with SQL, are incredibly valuable."
 

Cons

"The error logging capability can be improved because the logs are not very informative."
"InfluxDB is generally stable, but we've encountered issues with the configuration file in our ticket stack. For instance, a mistake in one of the metrics out of a hundred KPIs can disrupt data collection for all KPIs. This happens because the agent stops working if there's an issue with any configuration part. To address this, it is essential to ensure that all configurations are part of the agent's EXE file when provided. This makes it easier to package the agent for server installation and ensures all KPIs are available from the server. Additionally, the agent cannot encrypt and decrypt passwords for authentication, which can be problematic when monitoring URLs or requiring authentication tokens. This requires additional scripting and can prolong service restart times."
"The solution's UI can be more user-friendly."
"I've tried both on-premises and cloud-based deployments, and each has its limitations."
"InfluxDB cannot be used for high-cardinality data. It's also difficult and time-consuming to write queries, and there are some issues with bulk API."
"The solution doesn't have much of a user interface."
"In terms of features that I would like to see or have, in the community version, some features are not available. I would like to have clustering and authentication in the community version."
"One area for improvement is the querying language. InfluxDB deprecated FluxQL, which was intuitive since developers are already familiar with standard querying."
"Areas of improvement for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB include indexing. While it makes data retrieval easier, it also increases costs. If there's a better way to improve indexing at a lower cost, that would be really helpful, but that's the major point for now."
"Because there is no local way of doing things, Azure Cosmos DB will always be considered expensive."
"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."
"From about half a billion rows, we're returning maybe 20,000 in two or three minutes. We don't know why, but we are working with Microsoft and a third party to figure that out."
"The biggest problem is the learning curve and other database services like RDS."
"The query searching functionality has some complexities and could be more user-friendly. Improvements in this area would be very helpful."
"The solution cannot join two databases like Oracle or SQL Server."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is an open-source product."
"InfluxDB recently increased its price. It is very expensive now."
"We are using the open-source version of InfluxDB."
"InfluxDB is open-source, but there are additional costs for scaling."
"It seems to have helped significantly. We were using a different database system previously, and one of the reasons for acquiring Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB was cost."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is moderately priced, where it is neither expensive nor cheap."
"Our experience with the pricing and setup cost is that it aligns with what we expect based on the pricing we see. However, I would absolutely like it to be less if possible."
"If you are a small organization or startup building from scratch without the Microsoft Startup Founder Club support, it could be expensive."
"From a startup point of view, it appears to be expensive. If I were to create my startup, it would not have the pricing appeal compared to the competition, such as Supabase. All those other databases are well-advertised by communities. I know there is a free tier with Azure Cosmos DB. It is just not well advertised."
"It is cost-effective. They offer two pricing models. One is the serverless model and the other one is the vCore model that allows provisioning the resources as necessary. For our pilot projects, we can utilize the serverless model, monitor the usage, and adjust resources as needed."
"Its pricing structure is quite flexible."
"Pricing is one of the solution's main features because it is based on usage, scales automatically, and is not too costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
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
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about InfluxDB?
InfluxDB is a database where you can insert data. However, it would be best if you had different components for alerting, data sending, and visualization. You need to install tools to collect data ...
What needs improvement with InfluxDB?
InfluxDB is generally stable, but we've encountered issues with the configuration file in our ticket stack. For instance, a mistake in one of the metrics out of a hundred KPIs can disrupt data coll...
What is your primary use case for InfluxDB?
I use the solution to store and manage data from various sensors in a production environment. I have developed a system where data from these sensors is communicated through an OPC UA receiver and ...
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?
It is cost-efficient as long as you understand the right setup to optimize usage. Knowing the data needs of the organization and adjusting the Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB usage accordingly helps save...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
What is missing in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is definitely cold storage. We know it's coming, but that's currently what is missing—the possibility to park older data in a cold tier. Aside from the ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ebay, AXA, Mozilla, DiDi, LeTV, Siminars, Cognito, ProcessOut, Recommend, CATS, Smarsh, Row 44, Clustree, Bleemeo
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about InfluxDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.