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Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Neo4j Graph Database 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

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (4th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (1st)
Neo4j Graph Database
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 6.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Neo4j Graph Database is 6.1%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NoSQL Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB6.5%
Neo4j Graph Database6.1%
Other87.4%
NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

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.
RT
VP odfTechnology at Enterpi Software Solutions Private Limited
Delivers superior search and data aggregation capabilities
Neo4j helps with advanced search needs, providing good search results and aggregates compared to MongoDB. Aggregating with MongoDB can be difficult; however, with Neo4j, it's easier. Aggregating data, backing up, and creating new clusters are user-friendly from the back end. In DevOps web deployment, we noticed no database issues. We created Docker instances and set them up efficiently, managing databases up to 50 gigabytes.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Overall, I think Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB works fine; I don't remember any case where our developers or our clients have been disappointed with it."
"The high speed of Azure Cosmos DB compared to other competitors is remarkable."
"Since it's a managed service, Azure backend handles scalability. From a user's perspective, we don't need to worry about scalability."
"The querying language and the SDKs they've provided over the years have been phenomenal, giving us a significant advantage."
"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."
"Big data, along with data analysis, is one of the valuable features."
"Cosmos DB is stable and easy to use."
"The scalability and ease of use with the APIs of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB have allowed us to meet our customers' expectations pretty easily with little barrier to entry."
"It is good for search-based tasks, providing solid search results and aggregate results."
"For now, the tool doesn't break down or stop, so it is quite stable."
"As a graph database, I am surprised at their performance and response time."
"Creates the ability to visualize outputs."
"The solution's best feature is how it differs from traditional SQL databases. It's hard to map people and find those near me in SQL, which requires long, complex queries. Neo4j Graph Database makes this easier with simpler queries. It also supports more data types, like JSON, which SQL doesn't."
"Enables people to understand what the business problem is and how the technology helps."
 

Cons

"Customer service and technical support from Microsoft have been all right. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give them probably a six, maybe a hard seven at most."
"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."
"It would be beneficial if Cosmos supported batch and real-time use cases to make the system more seamless."
"The pricing of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings."
"Its stability can be further improved."
"Our use case was a failure with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, and we do not have any other opportunity to use Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."
"Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL has a less developed interface and fewer SQL commands than MongoDB, and its community support is also smaller."
"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 tool could improve by having more resources, especially for Golang, which we use. It lacks good basic libraries and doesn't have an ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) tool, which many NoSQL databases have. We thought about building an ORM for the Neo4j Graph Database but are too busy."
"The only problem is that the community is quite small."
"For me, when the tool was deployed on an on-premises model, it was a little bit difficult the first time."
"There are concerns about performance and whether the tool can necessarily scale to provide the solution."
"So far, we have not had any issues and are happy with the product in general."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cosmos DB is cost-effective when starting but requires careful management."
"Its price is very good for the basic stuff. When you go to a more complicated use case, especially when you need replication and availability zones, it gets a little costly."
"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."
"Cosmos DB is expensive compared to any virtual machine based on conventional RDBMS like MySQL or PostgreSQL."
"Cosmos DB is a PaaS, so there are no upfront costs for infrastructure. There are only subscriptions you pay for Azure and things like that. But it's a PaaS, so it's a subscription service. The license isn't perpetual, and the cost might seem expensive on its face, but you have to look at the upkeep for infrastructure and what you're saving."
"Its price is in the middle, neither too low nor too high."
"The price of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB could be a bit lower."
"Its pricing is not bad. It is good."
"The solution is open source so that you can use it for free. They also offer an enterprise version with its billing. If your company is earning well, I suggest using the enterprise version. Otherwise, you can deploy it on your own cloud and pay based on usage."
"The tool is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Legal Firm
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

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

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?
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Neo4j?
The solution is open source so that you can use it for free. They also offer an enterprise version with its billing. If your company is earning well, I suggest using the enterprise version. Otherwi...
What needs improvement with Neo4j Graph Database?
The only problem is that the community is quite small.
What is your primary use case for Neo4j Graph Database?
We have used Neo4j in microservices. In one of the microservices, we used Neo4j since we have some requirements similar to MongoDB plus Elasticsearch. It performs both functions. Instead of doing t...
 

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
Walmart, Telenor, Wazoku, Adidas, Cerved, GameSys, eBay, Schleich, ICIJ, die Bayerisch, Megree, InfoJobs, LinkedIn
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Neo4j Graph Database and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.