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Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs MongoDB 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Organizations find Azure Cosmos DB beneficial for maintenance and cost savings, despite complexities and varied economic impacts.
Sentiment score
5.8
User experiences with MongoDB ROI vary, from significant performance boosts to uncertainty and mixed returns due to adoption challenges.
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
7.4
Users report mixed experiences with Azure Cosmos DB support, highlighting challenges in contact navigation and variability in service quality.
Sentiment score
6.5
MongoDB's support is well-regarded for community and online resources, with paid users noting efficient but variable response times.
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
7.9
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers seamless scalability and flexibility, efficiently managing workloads and supporting dynamic application demands effectively.
Sentiment score
7.6
MongoDB is praised for high scalability, efficient data management, accommodating growth, though challenges exist with replication and heavy workloads.
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.
MongoDB is highly scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers high availability and low latency, with reliable redundancy and automatic failover despite occasional configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
7.8
MongoDB is highly rated for stability, with minor issues manageable through optimizations, not impacting overall reliability assessments.
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

Users seek better documentation, integration, UI, query handling, cost structure, MongoDB API support, and enhanced scalability in Cosmos DB.
MongoDB requires better BI integration, SQL queries, security, stability, scalability, cost-efficiency, and improved documentation and training resources.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
You have to monitor the Request Units.
The first one is the ability to assign role-based access control through the Azure portal for accounts to have contributor rights.
While solutions for other databases like SQL or PostgreSQL already exist, MongoDB requires additional integrations for developing AI solutions.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers scalable, reliable PaaS with flexible, usage-based pricing, potentially reducing costs through optimizations and discounts.
MongoDB offers affordable options compared to Oracle, with cost-effective cloud subscriptions but potentially pricier on-premises features.
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.
We use the free version of MongoDB, so there are no licensing costs.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is appreciated for scalability, ease of use, security, and seamless integration with Microsoft's ecosystem.
MongoDB offers scalability, flexibility, JSON storage, ease of use, high availability, powerful features, and strong community support for diverse applications.
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.
It offers flexibility in schema adaptation, allowing us to change the schema and add new data points.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
3rd
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), Vector Databases (3rd)
MongoDB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
1st
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 2.9%. The mindshare of MongoDB is 18.9%, down from 25.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Uzair Faruqi - PeerSpot reviewer
Transforms data flow with adaptable schema and smooth public cloud deployment
One of our business units uses MongoDB, and we developed an ETL pipeline that extracts data from MongoDB and transfers it into our data warehouse MongoDB is a NoSQL database that is similar to a document database. It offers flexibility in schema adaptation, allowing us to change the schema and…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Legal Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about MongoDB?
MongoDB's approach to handling data in documents rather than traditional tables has been particularly beneficial.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MongoDB?
We use the free version of MongoDB, so there are no licensing costs.
What needs improvement with MongoDB?
There is room for improvement in integrating MongoDB with agentive AI solutions. While solutions for other databases like SQL or PostgreSQL ( /products/postgresql-reviews ) already exist, MongoDB r...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Facebook, MetLife, City of Chicago, Expedia, eBay, Google
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. MongoDB and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.