We compared Amazon DynamoDB and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB based on our user's reviews across parameters. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Amazon DynamoDB and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, while both providing robust cloud database solutions, exhibit distinct features tailored to diverse user needs. DynamoDB, embedded within the AWS ecosystem, excels in managed scalability, security, and high availability but faces criticism over cost predictability and the steep learning curve for new users. Azure Cosmos DB stands out with its multi-model support and global distribution, offering flexibility and performance optimization across geographically dispersed areas. However, it also presents challenges with its complex pricing structure and steep learning curve. Both platforms indicate potential areas for improvement in cost transparency and user-friendly documentation, but they also maintain solid reputations for enhancing data management through their respective unique strengths.
The summary above is based on 53 interviews we conducted recently with Amazon DynamoDB and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"Speed is the most valuable feature. The speed to store and retrieve data from it."
"DynamoDB is a key-value database, and it's valuable if you have simple scan queries and don't need to do point searches."
"It is a NoSQL product."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and the compatibility options without needing to use any additional services or software. It is an independent solution that doesn't need other solutions to operate."
"The technical support team is always available to help us."
"We switched to DynamoDB from a relational database that would've had scale problems and would've cost a lot of money to run at scale. DynamoDB allows us to match expense to usage. When not many people are using and it's a quiet day, there is a low cost. On a busy day, there is a higher cost. We get good performance along the way and less maintenance on the database."
"Never used the support. I got all the information from the documentation."
"We don't have to administer the tool."
"The graphical representation of data is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"It's not a specific feature that I value, but the scalability of this system is the most impressive aspect."
"Cosmos DB is a pretty stable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"Cosmos DB is stable and easy to use."
"From a global distribution perspective, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is good and easy to handle."
"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 most valuable feature of the solution is that it is scalable with multiple master files."
"The solution is stable."
"In future releases, I would like a feature that lets us store information about public holidays or weekends. When customers call during those closed periods, we could use DynamoDB to trigger an automatic message. So this would eliminate the need for agents to manually inform customers."
"Data integrity across availability zones would be a valuable addition. Currently, DynamoDB provides eventual consistency across availability zones, but strong consistency would be beneficial for certain use cases."
"The solution's efficiency and performance should be faster than other databases."
"The documentation is not good enough."
"The solution's backup and restore could be improved to be able to utilize batch operations."
"There are some issues like if we missed something or somehow were not able to store the data, then it was quite difficult for us to get back that data."
"Sometimes when we query through the UI, it takes a long time to get the results."
"I'd like to see better integration with Cognito. It has the integration, but I'd like to see a little more ease of setup. If you have multiple customers and you want the database to enforce who can see what, you can treat DynamoDB so that each row has permissions. You can set this up, but it's a little more of a science project to make Cognito and DynamoDB work well to do protection of individual rows. So I'd like that to be more wizard or easy to set up."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"It should offer a simple user interface for querying Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."
"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."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's pricing model is complicated, which people don't understand."
"A couple features that would help me in architectural solutions would be customizable architecture or customizable documentation, which both Microsoft Azure or Microsoft Teams can provide."
"A further simple application is required for Brazil."
"In Microsoft manufacturing, managers really need to know about the product."
"Sometimes, the solution's access request takes time, which should be improved."
Amazon DynamoDB is ranked 2nd in Managed NoSQL Databases with 31 reviews while Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is ranked 1st in Managed NoSQL Databases with 38 reviews. Amazon DynamoDB is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Amazon DynamoDB writes "Manages our contact center dynamically and allows us to store multiple data attributes in tables". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB writes "Removes bottlenecks related to databases in our application and works quickly because of reference keys". Amazon DynamoDB is most compared with Amazon DocumentDB, Google Cloud Bigtable, Amazon Neptune, Amazon Timestream and Oracle NoSQL Database Cloud, whereas Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is most compared with Amazon Neptune, Neo4j AuraDB, Google Cloud Bigtable, Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon Timestream. See our Amazon DynamoDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB report.
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We monitor all Managed NoSQL Databases reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.