Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Neo4j Graph Database comparison

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Neo4j Graph Database

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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

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (1st)

Neo4j Graph Database

Ranking in NoSQL Databases

9th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 4.6%. The mindshare of Neo4j Graph Database is 5.4%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NoSQL Databases

Featured Reviews

MichaelJohn

Director | Data & AI at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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.

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Raju Tsn

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers the response times needed for advanced analytics applications."

"I definitely recommend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."

"We doubled our productivity with this small application."

"What I like about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is that it's easy to do data ingestion and use the data in different applications. If you talk about business intelligence such as the Power BI tool, it's easy to connect because both are Microsoft products. With Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, it's easy to connect and do data ingestion."

"The solution is highly scalable."

"Azure Cosmos DB helped improve the quality of our search results."

"I would recommend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB to other users without hesitation."

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's most valuable feature is latency."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pros

"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."

"As a graph database, I am surprised at their performance and response time."

"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."

"Creates the ability to visualize outputs."

"Enables people to understand what the business problem is and how the technology helps."

Cons

"The cost is a concern. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB did not decrease our total cost of ownership. From the standpoint of the old way of doing DBA operations, it did, but our cloud cost increased significantly."

"One area that could be improved is indexing. Some of the developers struggle with the way the indexing works. We are exploring vector indexing, which we haven't examined fully yet. Indexing is an aspect we're looking to improve upon potentially."

"It is easy to use, but optimization has been a mixed experience. It has been more of trying to figure out how to do so. We have not found much support there, so we have to come up with our own way of optimizing it in different ways. That is one area of improvement."

"There were instances where the DB was not responding, and we lost some part of our business due to that."

"We are at the beginning of production, and everything is working very well. The price can always be lower, but currently, it's not a problem."

"In that scenario, two things can be improved."

"Azure Cosmos DB could be better for business intelligence and analytical queries."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB cons

"The only problem is that the community is quite small."

"There are concerns about performance and whether the tool can necessarily scale to provide the solution."

"For me, when the tool was deployed on an on-premises model, it was a little bit difficult the first time."

"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."

"So far, we have not had any issues and are happy with the product in general."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cosmos DB is a managed offering, so its cost is understandably higher."

"Cosmos DB is cost-effective when starting but requires careful management."

"Its pricing structure is quite flexible."

"We are not consuming so much yet since we are at the beginning of using this solution. I would rate the pricing of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a six out of ten."

"Cosmos DB's pricing structure has significantly improved in recent months, both in terms of its pricing model and how charges are calculated."

"I would rate Cosmos DB's cost at seven out of ten, with ten being the highest."

"You need to understand exactly the details of how the pricing works technically to stay within reasonable pricing."

"Right now, I have opted for the student subscription plan, for which Microsoft charges me around 100 USD. The pricing of the solution depends on the solution's usage."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing and cost advice

"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

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Energy/Utilities Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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?

We are not consuming so much yet since we are at the beginning of using this solution. I would rate the pricing of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a six out of ten.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

We are at the beginning of production, and everything is working very well. The price can always be lower, but currently, it's not a problem.

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...

Chroma vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Qdrant vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Compared 16% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

Cassandra vs Neo4j Graph Database

Compared 10% of the time

Aerospike Database 7 vs Neo4j Graph Database

Compared 10% of the time

InfluxDB vs Neo4j Graph Database

Compared 7% of the time

More Neo4j Graph Database Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Download Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB product report

Neo4j Graph Database

Download Neo4j Graph Database product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database service providing scalability, user-friendliness, and seamless integration, suitable for managing large volumes of structured and unstructured data across diverse applications.

Azure Cosmos DB is renowned for its scalability, stability, and ease of integration, offering robust support for multiple data models and APIs. Its capacity for handling unstructured data efficiently and providing real-time analytics makes it ideal for applications requiring high performance and global distribution. With features like automatic failover and integration with Microsoft products, users benefit from cost optimization and secure data handling. Enhancement opportunities include simplifying queries, improving documentation, and expanding backup and analytics functionalities.

What are the most important features of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

Scalability and Autoscaling: Efficiently handles growing data and user demands.
Multi-Model Support: Adapts to different data models seamlessly.
Global Distribution: Provides low-latency access across multiple regions.
Automatic Failover: Ensures high availability and reliability.
Integration with Microsoft Products: Offers seamless connectivity with Azure services.

What benefits should users look for in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reviews?

Performance and Speed: Exceptionally fast processing for real-time data analytics.
Cost Optimization: Tools for managing expenses effectively.
Secure Data Handling: Implements strong data security measures.
Flexible Data Ingestion: Supports diverse data ingestion methods.

Azure Cosmos DB is frequently used in sectors like web, mobile, IoT, and analytics. It supports applications as a key-value store, processes real-time data, and enables global scalability with low-latency access. Its big data management capabilities and integration with Azure services enhance its utility across industries.

Microsoft

Neo4j is the graph database solution allowing the analysis of complex relationships and patterns in data, leading to better decision-making and improved business processes. The graph database offers easy data integration from multiple sources, providing a more comprehensive view.

The most valuable aspect of a graph database is its performance and response time, as it does not use the join function and only has nodes and raw data. Overall, Neo4j, as a global first-ranking solution, has helped organizations become more efficient and effective in data analysis and decision-making processes.

Neo4j

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

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Neo4j Graph Database