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Google Cloud Bigtable vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

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

Google Cloud Bigtable
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (5th), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Bigtable is 5.7%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 16.1%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Aakash Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Great for streaming data and being a managed service is an advantage
Our primary use case is for analytics, analyzing the data sets and curing Bigtable is very user-friendly where streaming data is required. I think it's relatively easier to use than Ascentra. The fact that it's a managed service is an advantage.   The cost of this product is too expensive.…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability-wise, it is a simple solution. I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The main benefit I receive from Google Cloud Bigtable is the managed service part."
"It's very user-friendly where streaming data is required."
"The main benefit I receive from Google Cloud Bigtable is the managed service part."
"Bigtable is faster than other competitors in the market. It helps us collate all the data, and the security features are great. The latency is low, and the computation speed is fantastic. Bigtable is also a managed service, so you don't have to worry about anything aside from analyzing the data ingested."
"The solution is very convenient."
"The most valuable feature is the backup and replication service."
"It is easy to use because you don't need to know much about Cosmos DB or have prior experience."
"Cosmos DB is a document database that stores data in JSON format for faster retrieval of unstructured data. I personally appreciate the speed, which is significantly better for unstructured data, especially since Cosmos DB had JSON as a data type early on."
"I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a ten out of ten."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is easy to use and implement for application programmers."
"It is a scalable product."
"rate Azure support nine out of 10. They respond quickly and will help you manage costs. However, they mainly give you an overview of the issue, so they'll never have an in-depth idea of what you're doing. They aren't the owners of our product, so they don't know much about it, but they can ask you generally: What are you doing? Are you doing too many updates? How can we reduce the cost?"
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is fast, and its performance is good compared to normal SQL DB."
"Switching to the cloud significantly improved scalability, flexibility, and uptime."
 

Cons

"I've used Bigtable for about three or four years."
"Improvement should be made as per customer recommended and requirements."
"The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"This product needs better security and transparency, and the price should be reduced."
"When it comes to complex queries, a user can't get any help from a drop-down box and pick columns. It would be great if some improvements could be made in the aforementioned area concerning the solution."
"The cost of this product is too expensive."
"Because there is no local way of doing things, Azure Cosmos DB will always be considered expensive."
"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."
"It's still new, and good training resources are harder to find. Even the most recent books on Cosmos DB are several years old, which is ancient in IT terms."
"The initial setup was difficult."
"The size of the continuation token in Azure Cosmos DB should be static rather than increasing with more data, as it can lead to application crashes. They should use a static key size."
"It is not as easy to use as DynamoDB."
"One of our biggest pain points is the backup and restore functionality needs improvement. They've gotten a little better in this area. SQL Server's long-term retention is amazing, and you can restore data from years ago. You need to open a support Microsoft ticket to restore your Cosmos DB backup, and it comes in on a different Cosmos account. It's just kind of a headache to restore data."
"It would be ideal if we could integrate Cosmos DB with our Databricks. At this point, that's not possible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"For the cloud, we don't pay for the license, but for the on-prem versions, we do pay."
"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."
"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."
"The customer had a high budget, but it turned out to be a little bit cheaper than what they expected. I am not sure how much they have spent so far, but they are satisfied with the pricing."
"There is a licensing fee."
"Its price is in the middle, neither too low nor too high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Legal Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud Bigtable?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Bigtable?
The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required. In general, the performance of the product needs improvement.
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Bigtable?
When a client gives our organization a project where they need a dashboard for their company, they provide us with some data from their database, which is usually presented in Google Cloud Bigtable...
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?
In Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, I would suggest improvements in security. If anyone who has the endpoint and has access to infrastructure can potentially affect your DB. Instead of relying on a singl...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cognite, Dow Jones, Loblaw Digital
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.