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Amazon DynamoDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
Amazon DynamoDB offers scalable reliability, time savings, and reduced personnel needs, though costs and financial returns depend on usage.
Sentiment score
7.2
Users find Azure Cosmos DB offers agility and cost-saving despite complex pricing; valued for ease of use and scalability.
AWS makes money from Amazon DynamoDB, and our involvement is more about professional services engagement.
Getting an MVP of that project would have taken six to eight months, but because we had an active choice of using Azure Cosmos DB and other related cloud-native services of Azure, we were able to get to an MVP stage in a matter of weeks, which is six weeks.
You can react quickly and trim down the specs, memory, RAM, storage size, etc. It can save about 20% of the costs.
When I have done comparisons or cost calculations, I have sometimes personally seen as much as 25% to 30% savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Amazon DynamoDB support is fast and helpful, but local support and understanding specific use cases could improve.
Sentiment score
7.3
Azure Cosmos DB support is generally positive, with effective assistance but resolution speed and quality may vary by contact.
They follow up on support tickets until the issue is resolved.
Technical support is quite good, with a rating of eight out of ten.
Premier Support has deteriorated compared to what it used to be, especially for small to medium-sized customers like ours.
The response was quick.
I would rate customer service and support a nine out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Amazon DynamoDB is valued for its scalability, reliability, and efficiency, accommodating diverse data loads despite configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB excels in scalability and cost-effectiveness, though some face challenges with partition limits and manual adjustments.
Scalability is the most valuable feature, and I rate it a ten out of ten.
Amazon DynamoDB is highly scalable.
The system scales up capacity when needed and scales down when not in use, preventing unnecessary expenses.
We like that it can auto-scale to demand, ensuring we only pay for what we use.
We have had no issues with its ability to search through large amounts of data.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Amazon DynamoDB is considered highly reliable, with rare stability issues and excellent scaling capabilities, despite minor configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is highly stable with low latency, though large datasets may require careful configuration and resource management.
I have not faced any issues with bugs or a breakdown in Amazon DynamoDB.
We have multiple availability zones, so nothing goes down.
Azure Cosmos DB would be a good choice if you have to deploy your application in a limited time frame and you want to auto-scale the database across different applications.
I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of availability and latency.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek better documentation, query features, user interface, encryption, automation, integration, and pricing for Amazon DynamoDB.
Users suggest improvements for Azure Cosmos DB in querying, API integration, pricing, performance, UI, and documentation.
The user interface could be improved to make it more intuitive.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
You have to monitor the Request Units.
The first one is the ability to assign role-based access control through the Azure portal for accounts to have contributor rights.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon DynamoDB offers flexible, cost-effective pricing, but costs may rise with large data volumes or high traffic.
Azure Cosmos DB pricing is flexible but complex, with costs influenced by usage patterns, offering scalability and reliability for enterprises.
Amazon DynamoDB can be quite expensive due to regional differences, so I have to be careful with the pricing.
Initially, it seemed like an expensive way to manage a NoSQL data store, but so many improvements that have been made to the platform have made it cost-effective.
Cosmos DB is expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing.
Cosmos DB is great compared to other databases because we can reduce the cost while doing the same things.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon DynamoDB is praised for scalability, speed, cost efficiency, seamless AWS integration, and features like auto-scaling and secondary indexes.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB provides scalable, developer-friendly, globally distributed database solutions with low latency, security, and easy integration.
Scalability has significantly enhanced data retrieval speeds.
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database known for its high performance and scalability.
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its real-time analytics capabilities, which allow for turnaround times in milliseconds.
Performance and security are valuable features, particularly when using Cosmos DB for MongoDB emulation and NoSQL.
The performance and scaling capabilities of Cosmos DB are excellent, allowing it to handle large workloads compared to other services such as Azure AI Search.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon DynamoDB
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
43
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
7.2
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Vector Databases (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Amazon DynamoDB is 17.6%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 15.5%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Prabin Silwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers exceptional performance to users
Previously, when in my company, we used to store 64 KB of data, we used to get problems and errors, and due to such reason, at such a point in time, we had to find a different storage system or modify the system so that the size of the value is not more than 64 KB. The main aforementioned issue in the tool can be considered for improvement for Amazon DynamoDB. In our company, we have some data which can be stored as we want. Previously, only 64 KB could be used, and later, I think, it was about 400 KB. If the tool could have an additional 10 MB to offer, then the tool could be easier to use. The tool is a key value storage, where the key will be long. In terms of value, we couldn't store more than 64 kb previously in the tool, but later on, it was increased to 400 KB, which is a limitation that I don't like in the tool.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
Legal Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon DynamoDB?
The user interface could be improved to make it more intuitive. From a design and solution perspective, it's really good, but the interface always has room for enhancement.
What is your primary use case for Amazon DynamoDB?
We use Amazon DynamoDB for data lookups with the consultancy.
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?
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. C...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I had a challenging experience implementing the emulator with a Mac. I had to install the emulator in a Docker container because it is not natively compatible. A significant amount of time was spen...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Snapchat, Capital One, Expedia, Tinder, Airbnb, Comcast, Lyft, Redfin, Netflix, Adobe
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon DynamoDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.