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Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service 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 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)
Oracle Exadata Express Clou...
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 4.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is 1.6%, up from 0.4% 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%
Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service1.6%
Other94.3%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

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.
Shrikant Navelkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Clover Infotech
Have achieved excellent performance and seamless integration with effective cost control in cloud solutions
When customers are migrating from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service and need to remove some of their test and development environment, what happens in normal virtualization is that they can just switch it off, but in ExaCS, they need to terminate the entire thing. Most of the customers are not aware of this, so they keep spending money even if they want to shut down their UAT environment or development environment, so Oracle needs to make it simpler in terms of reducing the bill on ExaCS when customers want to shut down certain environments. Today, you have to terminate the entire VM, and only then your billing will stop. The only functionality I would expect from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is that if Oracle is able to support Oracle MySQL Enterprise also on Exadata, that will solve a lot of problems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The autoscale feature is the most useful for us."
"The most valuable features include the global write capability, which allows customers to read and write across different regions simultaneously, enhancing performance and availability."
"It is a cloud-based solution that is easy to deploy, easy to access, and provides users with more features compared to other clouds like AWS and GCP."
"Our team has found the vCore index to be one of the most valuable features. We have tokenized and vectorized our entire database and stored this data in MongoDB collections with a vCore index, which works like magic for keyword selection."
"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."
"Azure Cosmos DB offers numerous data connectors that provide a platform for seamless integration with various platforms and visualization tools such as Power BI. It allows connection via multiple data connectors to integrate data in any desired format."
"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."
"For modern applications, I would recommend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."
"The performance of the tool is valuable."
"I like that Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service is easier to use and is a cost-saving solution because you won't need to hire people to run and maintain it."
"The solution is very stable and offers great performance."
"It is a scalable product."
"I highly recommend Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service as a very good solution if you can afford it."
"Having the prediction happen in the modular format allows you to start with a lower version of Exadata and then you can keep on upgrading it as per your requirement."
"In the cloud, Exadata is more scalable. The on-prem version was limited. It wasn't that scalable because it only came in a quarter rack, half rack, and full rack. In the cloud, it scales to what you need."
"I would rate Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service ten out of ten for its overall solution."
 

Cons

"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."
"I am disappointed with the lack of compatibility of the Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB emulator with Mac."
"The RUs still appear to be a black box for everyone. Even though they explain read and write RUs, it remains unclear for many users."
"In that scenario, two things can be improved."
"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."
"The main area of improvement is the cost, as the expense is high. Also, when writing processes into Cosmos, sometimes the threshold is met, which can be a problem if developers have not written the code properly, limiting calls to five thousand."
"There are multiple approaches to implementing multitenant architecture on Azure Cosmos DB, but there is still no single or best-recommended approach when you have a big variance in the size of your tenants. That is something that still needs to be worked on."
"The query searching functionality has some complexities and could be more user-friendly. Improvements in this area would be very helpful."
"Oracle's support could be better."
"I feel there is a need for better integration with Google Maps and Google Earth. This is crucial for me in the geographical facilities of the environment."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
"The customer's default choice is the on-premise version of this solution. Only when Oracle or the partners like us, can explain to customers the cloud value proposition, and if the compliance authorities allow, they can look into this cloud solution. It will take some time for Oracle to change its perception of customers' de-facto standards. Exadata used to be treated as a black box, which is not the case now. The customer is aware of what is happening inside, how the configurations have been made, and what patching has been applied. Oracle needs to market the cloud version better."
"We use artificial intelligence for deep learning, and it would be a huge benefit to implement this in Oracle Exadata."
"The only downside is the difficulty in monitoring, and that's why I would like to implement MySQL database."
"Scaling Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service can be done, but the process is a little tedious, which could be an area for improvement in the solution."
"The support must be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most customers like the flexibility of the pricing model, and it has not been an issue. They can start small, and the cost grows with adoption, allowing efficient management of the budget. Its pricing model has not been a concern at all for any of our customers. They understand it. It is simple enough to understand. Oftentimes, it is hard to forecast the RUs, but, in general, it has been fine."
"Cost isn’t a big hurdle for us right now. The solution is not costly."
"Its pricing is not bad. It is good."
"The pricing and licensing model was initially difficult to understand, but as soon as I learned what was going on and how it was priced, it was pretty easy."
"Its cost is transparent. Pricing depends on the transaction and data size, but overall, it is cheaper compared to hosting it on your corporate network due to other factors like power consumption."
"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 costs, but if you don't know, you could end up spending more than necessary."
"Cosmos DB is a highly cost-optimized solution when used correctly."
"Because of the lack of understanding about RUs, the costs become unpredictable. It sometimes goes over the budget."
"The tool is not cheap, but it is not really expensive."
"The price of this solution is very comparative to others on the market. There is no direct comparison between this solution and with something else because I do not see any other similar product."
"I think Oracle pricing is usually above average market price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Legal Firm
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

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 Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
Oracle is quite expensive here in Brazil. Pricing is the primary challenge we face with Oracle.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
When customers are migrating from Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service and need to remove some of their test and development environment, what happens in normal virtualization is that they can just...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service?
We have been implementing Oracle Exadata Express Cloud Service for our customers for more than 10 to 12 years for our various customers through the on-premise Exadata offerings Oracle has.
 

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
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