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Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs MongoDB Atlas comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 11, 2026

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
6.7
Organizations using Azure SQL Database report cost savings, enhanced efficiency, and reduced data center needs with pay-per-use models.
Sentiment score
7.5
MongoDB Atlas offers cost savings and efficiency but requires effective management to counter support costs impacting financial benefits.
It is ensuring we receive what we pay for through the blend of price, performance, and features.
Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees
If you're managing your own data center, you always have to overprovision your systems and pay for storage space you're not using.
Senior AI Specialist at Nedbank
We've reduced costs by about 20 percent after two or three years.
Azure Cloud Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
I find it easy to use.
IT Manager at a government with 11-50 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Azure SQL Database's customer service is effective but varies; larger accounts receive better support than smaller users.
Sentiment score
6.8
MongoDB Atlas customer service is efficient with premium plans, but experiences vary in consistency and cost-effectiveness.
Microsoft played a significant role, even from a training perspective, and provided resources that directed us toward the right deployment path.
Senior AI Specialist at Nedbank
Once I reach the right people, the support is incredibly knowledgeable and thorough.
CTO at 2W Technologies, INC
Microsoft provides excellent service and is always available to support us.
Sr. Principal Database at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I have used them sometimes, even recently, and found the feedback to be spot on our needs.
Partner at Red software systems
The features of MongoDB Atlas fall short, resulting in an average rating due to higher-expectation features still lacking in its offerings.
DB Architect / Consultant at Virtusa Global
For premium support, I would rate the support of MongoDB Atlas a nine.
General Manager at Kaleyra
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers flexible scalability, easy workload management, seamless tier transitions, and supports user expansion with robust infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.5
MongoDB Atlas provides scalable management from small to large environments but may need technical adjustments during configuration or migration.
Scaling the solution is incredibly simple and involves just clicking a button or dragging a slider.
Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Azure's scalability features like Elasticity are essential.
Solutions Architect at ITCON SERVICES, LLC
Microsoft Azure SQL Database is cloud-based, so it's great for scaling workloads.
System Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
It's very much scalable, and I would rate scalability a nine.
General Manager at Kaleyra
MongoDB Atlas offers sharding as a scalability feature, although it does not perform as well as Oracle.
DB Architect / Consultant at Virtusa Global
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Azure SQL Database is praised for reliability, excellent uptime, and improved performance, with minor latency issues reported.
Sentiment score
7.9
MongoDB Atlas is praised for stability, reliability, and features, though some encounter occasional UI issues.
We can't tell the difference between running on-prem or Azure because we no longer have those latency issues.
Senior AI Specialist at Nedbank
SQL never crashes or suddenly becomes unavailable.
Cloud Engineer at Med Tech Solutions
I would assess the reliability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database in terms of maintaining uptime and availability as being excellent with zero complaints.
Ai Team Lead at Phoenix Software
When it comes to OLTP transactions, its performance declines.
DB Architect / Consultant at Virtusa Global
The stability of the product is very high.
General Manager at Kaleyra
 

Room For Improvement

Azure SQL Database needs enhanced security, scalability, clear pricing, better documentation, broader compatibility, and improved user interface and automation.
MongoDB Atlas needs UI improvements, cost reduction, enhanced integration, better query performance, security, scalability, and data handling support.
It would be helpful if CPU performance were not pinned to the amount of storage you're using, and we could scale different properties of the Azure SQL database independently.
Azure Cloud Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
As a customer, I believe something which has been established, stable, and rugged for a very long time also needs cost optimization.
Assistant Vice President at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I could not get an accurate quote on what my monthly costs would be based on my needs.
Senior Manager, Information Technology of Data Strategies at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Enhancing capabilities for data pipelines and visualization dashboards.
DB Architect / Consultant at Virtusa Global
MongoDB Atlas should support containerization.
General Manager at Kaleyra
In terms of scalability, it handles system growth without failure, but it has experienced some outages that could affect uptime.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Azure SQL Database offers flexible pricing but is perceived as moderately expensive, requiring careful budget considerations.
Enterprise users generally find MongoDB Atlas cost-effective, appreciating its pay-as-you-go model despite some concerns about support expenses.
Azure Hybrid Benefit reduced costs by facilitating an easy transition of on-premises databases to the cloud.
Data Platform Specialist at QS2 AG - Quality Software Solutions
Microsoft Azure SQL Database is not cheap.
Software Architect at Dynaxti
It greatly reduces the total cost of ownership through efficient licensing depending on the client, the cost savings, and hybrid benefits.
Cloud Engineer at Med Tech Solutions
The free tier is M0 for $0, which is suitable for basic applications.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
For our service, it was around 300 to 600 euros per month, which was acceptable for our customers.
Partner at Red software systems
The price of MongoDB Atlas is reasonable, which is why many organizations, including mine, are opting for it.
DB Architect / Consultant at Virtusa Global
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Azure SQL Database provides seamless scalability, dynamic resource management, high efficiency, and cost-effective integration with Microsoft applications.
MongoDB Atlas offers speed, scalability, user-friendly cloud features, strong security, seamless integration, and flexible pay-as-you-go pricing.
The simplicity in usability, along with improved organizational productivity where we no longer need to maintain on-premises SQL servers, is invaluable.
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
The Software as a Service model is more effective and easier to access in terms of security, as Azure provides security at the security layer, reducing the risk of breach.
Specialist Datacenter and Server at IHS Towers
Using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very easy; it's much easier than SQL on-premise because I don't have to worry about deploying infrastructure, and I can rapidly deploy via infrastructure as code.
Executive Director, Platform Architecture at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation – SMBC Group
The platform automatically handles traffic spikes and includes built-in features such as storage, auto-scaling, automatic backup, and point-in-time recovery.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
I find MongoDB Atlas highly scalable and easy to use, with very good support.
Partner at Red software systems
It is particularly useful for unstructured and semi-structured data because of its performance in these areas.
DB Architect / Consultant at Virtusa Global
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MongoDB Atlas
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Managed NoSQL Databases (3rd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (3rd), AI Software Development (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure SQL Database is 10.7%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MongoDB Atlas is 12.3%, down from 15.0% 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 SQL Database10.7%
MongoDB Atlas12.3%
Other77.0%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Sawyer - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Director, Platform Architecture at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation – SMBC Group
Automatic tuning and multi-region availability have reduced manual workloads and improved performance management
The features of Microsoft Azure SQL Database that I like the most are easy scaling and high availability. I appreciate those features because it's easy to make Microsoft Azure SQL Database readily available in a multi-region infrastructure. Using Microsoft Azure SQL Database is very easy; it's much easier than SQL on-premise because I don't have to worry about deploying infrastructure, and I can rapidly deploy via infrastructure as code. I am using the automatic tuning feature in Microsoft Azure SQL Database. We are using the new feature of data encryption in Microsoft Azure SQL Database with customer-managed keys only. The reliability and stability of Microsoft Azure SQL Database platform are rock-solid; it's as good, if not better, than what our on-premise stability has been from an uptime perspective.
Pranay Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
Cloud database has supported charity platform growth and has improved team delivery speed
Setting up MongoDB Atlas is very easy, as I simply select the cluster and the size I want. There are free clusters available for testing real applications, and it is a NoSQL-based database that works well for both web and mobile applications, providing real-time analytics-driven solutions where flexible schema is the main priority.The best feature MongoDB Atlas offers is the flexible database schema that I can easily set up. It is easy to set up, has no server setup cost, requires no manual setting, and has no downtime. The platform automatically handles traffic spikes and includes built-in features such as storage, auto-scaling, automatic backup, and point-in-time recovery. Auto-scaling and backups have been instrumental in my project using MongoDB Atlas, especially when I moved from UAT to production. My customer base of more than 10 lakhs increased, and the system automatically scaled to handle those requests, ensuring the database could respond in time. MongoDB Atlas has an aggregation framework that handles complex analytics without requiring any extra tools. It also provides real-time updates and streaming capabilities. MongoDB Atlas has positively impacted my organization by reducing operational costs, as I do not need database administrators or server maintenance. It follows a pay-as-you-go strategy, allowing me to increase cluster size by simply paying more, which results in faster development and deployment processes. High availability is also provided through built-in replications and automatic failovers. My team consists of 18 people, and our uptime has improved to 99.9% and above. The delivery speed has increased, and I have reduced the delivery cycle by 30 to 50 percent.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise61
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SQL Azure?
The automated scalability feature of SQL Azure has proven to be highly beneficial, particularly when deployed in the cloud.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SQL Azure?
I would say I am at a basic experience level with the pricing, setup costs and licensing because while I am the administrator for the service, I do not provision the services and worry about the co...
What needs improvement with SQL Azure?
I have no comments at the moment on how Microsoft Azure SQL Database can be improved. I have no comments on additional features that I would like to see released in the next release. I do not have ...
What do you like most about MongoDB Atlas?
There are many valuable features, but scalability stands out. It can scale across zones. You can define multiple nodes. They have also partnered with AWS, offering great service with multiple featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MongoDB Atlas?
I have no idea about the pricing or setup cost with MongoDB Atlas.
What needs improvement with MongoDB Atlas?
I would say pricing is an area where MongoDB Atlas could improve.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Atlas, MongoDB Atlas (pay-as-you-go)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH
Wells Fargo, Forbes, Ulta Beauty, Bosch, Sanoma, Current (a Digital Bank), ASAP Log, SBB, Zebra Technologies, Radial, Kovai, Eni, Accuhit, Cognigy, and Payload.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. MongoDB Atlas and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.