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Amazon DynamoDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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 saves time, enhances operations with reliability, scalability, but increasing expenses vary based on platform integration.
Sentiment score
7.2
Organizations find Azure Cosmos DB beneficial for maintenance and cost savings, despite complexities and varied economic impacts.
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.
When I have done comparisons or cost calculations, I have sometimes personally seen as much as 25% to 30% savings.
It's an excellent option for NoSQL or semi-structured data because our agreements start as a morass of raw data from PDF, OCR PDF, or paper OCR scans.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Amazon DynamoDB's support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, with documentation often helpful for resolving issues independently.
Sentiment score
7.4
Users report mixed experiences with Azure Cosmos DB support, highlighting challenges in contact navigation and variability in service quality.
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 highly scalable, efficiently handling diverse workloads, though users occasionally face data size limitations.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers seamless scalability and flexibility, efficiently managing workloads and supporting dynamic application demands effectively.
Scalability is the most valuable feature, and I rate it a ten out of ten.
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
8.3
Amazon DynamoDB is highly stable, handling data scaling without latency, though rare downtime may occur during high-profile incidents.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers high availability and low latency, with reliable redundancy and automatic failover despite occasional configuration challenges.
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

Improving DynamoDB involves better documentation, user interface, encryption, query optimization, indexing, backup, pricing flexibility, and cross-region consistency.
Users seek better documentation, integration, UI, query handling, cost structure, MongoDB API support, and enhanced scalability in Cosmos DB.
The user interface could be improved to make it more intuitive.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
The first one is the ability to assign role-based access control through the Azure portal for accounts to have contributor rights.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon DynamoDB offers cost-effective, usage-based pricing, though costs may rise for high-volume demands compared to relational databases.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers scalable, reliable PaaS with flexible, usage-based pricing, potentially reducing costs through optimizations and discounts.
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 offers scalable, high-speed NoSQL performance, seamless AWS integration, and cost-efficient usage-based pricing without infrastructure management.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is appreciated for scalability, ease of use, security, and seamless integration with Microsoft's ecosystem.
Scalability has significantly enhanced data retrieval speeds.
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
42
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
84
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
21%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
4%
Legal Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
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?
There is nothing that I can think of for improvements.
What is your primary use case for Amazon DynamoDB?
My company has a fleet management system, and we primarily use DynamoDB to store location data.
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?
Azure Cosmos DB is generally a costly resource compared to other Azure resources. It comes with a high cost. We have reserved one thousand RUs. Free usage is also limited.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I think Cosmos DB enhanced the benefits of NoSQL databases, offering query flexibility, partition management, and backup and restore options. These aspects are crucial, and perhaps improving the co...
 

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: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.