Amazon DynamoDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Managed NoSQL Databases category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 18.2% mindshare in MND, compared to Microsoft’s 16.6% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Amazon DynamoDB

Read 41 Amazon DynamoDB reviews

1,915 Views
1,647 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Read 80 Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reviews

3,186 Views
1,216 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Amazon DynamoDB

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Amazon DynamoDB and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are prominent contenders in the NoSQL database space. Cosmos DB holds a slight advantage with its multi-model and global distribution capabilities.

Features: Amazon DynamoDB offers scalability, speed, and the ability to handle unstructured or semi-structured data. It integrates seamlessly with AWS services like EC2 and Lambda, allowing schema flexibility without upfront design, making it suitable for on-demand use cases. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is known for its multi-model support and global distribution, optimizing latency and integrating smoothly with Azure services. It provides robust document storage and data querying across various APIs, offering versatility in handling diverse data types.

Room for Improvement: Amazon DynamoDB could benefit from improved documentation and user interface. The absence of server-side encryption and complex query handling are notable concerns. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB faces challenges with API compatibility and cross-container querying, and its pricing structure is often considered high and complex. While both databases can enhance their offerings, Cosmos DB receives more criticism due to its extensive feature set and management complexities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon DynamoDB is widely used in both public and private clouds, with technical support generally rated positively, though specific problem resolution can be slow. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is mainly deployed in public cloud environments, offering robust technical support with rapid response times but needs improvement in resolving prolonged bugs. Both provide good customer service, although DynamoDB occasionally lacks understanding of specific use cases.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon DynamoDB offers a lower starting cost with a pay-as-you-go model, but expenses can rise with increased volume and usage. Its pricing simplicity makes it economical for smaller datasets. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, also pay-as-you-go, presents a more complicated and often perceived expensive pricing model, especially due to RU/capacity units. While comprehensive features can justify its costs for enterprise-level applications, its pricing is seen as less transparent. Both solutions deliver strong ROI, especially when well-integrated, though Microsoft's offering can be financially demanding if not properly managed.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon DynamoDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon DynamoDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

January 2025

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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

Amazon DynamoDB

Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Vector Databases (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Amazon DynamoDB is 18.2%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 16.6%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed NoSQL Databases

Featured Reviews

Prabin Silwal

Senior Engineering Consultant at ASSURANCE IQ, INC.

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.

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MichaelJohn

Director | Data & AI at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The latency feature is precious."

"Capable of auto-scaling and integrates easily with other tools"

"It offers quick performance and rapid data retrieval, often providing limited data initially but scaling up to fulfill larger demands seamlessly."

"We directly pass the JSON value to Amazon DynamoDB, which is why Amazon DynamoDB is faster than relational databases."

"Offers a vital query-handling feature"

"Its scalability is really good. I can go up to a petabyte of data. It is more of an on-demand use case. I can go from 100 MB to 1 PB if I want, which is very good. Most of the other databases would want you to stick to a specific data allocation. Its subscription cost is lower than similar databases offered by other vendors."

"DynamoDB is easy to configure, easy to use, and allows for writing data in JSON format."

"It has helped us build our product from zero point to the end."

More Amazon DynamoDB pros

"Since it's a managed service, Azure backend handles scalability. From a user's perspective, we don't need to worry about scalability."

"It is easy to use because you don't need to know much about Cosmos DB or have prior experience."

"The querying language and the SDKs they've provided over the years have been phenomenal, giving us a significant advantage."

"Cosmos DB makes life easier because if we want to use Mongo-type data, or Cassandra-type data, or maybe even just a simple cable storage-type data, then graph, there are multiple ways to do this."

"We value the replication and regional availability features that Cosmos DB provides. The replication includes read replicas and write replicas. The recent addition of vectorization and similarity comparisons add values for AI workloads. 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."

"We achieved a strong return on investment."

"The solution is stable."

"The solution is used because we get faster response times with large data sets than with SQL."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pros

Cons

"Querying data on the solution is quite limited, but this is like any other NoSQL database. It's the most common criticism of the NoSQL database in general."

"Having an import option, whether through browsing or local file uploads, would significantly improve the efficiency of data migration, enabling users to swiftly transfer large volumes of data into DynamoDB."

"The pricing model should be improved"

"The setup cost could be reduced. But overall, the tool works smoothly."

"Support is better if using a paid version."

"The solution's backup and restore could be improved to be able to utilize batch operations."

"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 would work fast if a contact center is in the same region."

More Amazon DynamoDB cons

"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."

"Slight enhancements in integration interfaces, expanded dashboard functionalities, and broader use-case support would be beneficial."

"If you want to bring the data from AWS, you must pay data egress costs. That's a pain point."

"One area for improvement is the ease of writing SQL queries and stored procedures in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. Writing an SQL query and a stored procedure on top of that is a little challenging."

"There are no specific areas I believe need improvement as I am happy with what I am getting currently. However, I am open to new features in future versions, like possibly integrating AI features natively into Cosmos DB. Any improvement would be beneficial."

"A better description and more guidance would help because the first time I created it, I didn't understand that a container is similar to a table in SQL."

"The built-in integration of the solution is tight."

"Continuing to educate customers on how they can take better advantage of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB without having to completely rewrite their entire application paradigm would be beneficial. They can help them understand that there are multiple options to interact with it. They do not necessarily have to start from scratch. They can refactor their existing application to be able to use it better."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For our use case usage, DynamoDB's pricing was okay. However, for high-traffic applications, the pricing structure becomes less attractive."

"I would rate the pricing for this solution a four out of five."

"It is a little expensive."

"Amazon DynamoDB is a cheap solution."

"It is costly. To reduce the costs, users need to read the node in front of it. For read-heavy groups, cache optimization can help manage costs.I can't disclose specific pricing, but it's competitive compared to others in the market, and this information is easily accessible online"

"Given the services and benefits provided by AWS, the solution's pricing is average."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the pricing a seven. It is not the cheapest, but it is not the costliest either."

"You can get committed capacity or transaction-based pricing. If you're doing it on demand, they charge based on whether you're reading or writing. They charge $1.25 for every million rights to the database and 25 cents for every million reads from the database. The first 25 gigabytes of storage are free, and they charge 25 cents a gigabyte a month. So, it's a very different world. It's a quarter a gigabyte a month. You can store a lot of data. They have a separate fee for automated backup, and if you want it globally distributed, where it's distributed around the world, there's a slightly different price."

More Amazon DynamoDB pricing and cost advice

"The Cosmos DB pricing model, initially quite complicated, became clear after consulting with Azure Advisor, allowing us to proceed with confidence."

"Cosmos should be cheaper. We actually intend to stop using it in the near future because the price is too high."

"Its pricing structure is quite flexible."

"Right now, I have opted for the student subscription plan, for which Microsoft charges me around 100 USD. The pricing of the solution depends on the solution's usage."

"The price of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB could be a bit lower."

"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."

"Cosmos DB gave us three accounts for $400. We pay according to the usage."

"The RU's use case determines our license fees."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

13%

Legal Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon DynamoDB?

We don't have to administer the tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon DynamoDB?

There is nothing that I can think of for improvements.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

Overall, it is a good resource. I am not aware of the background, but it seems to currently support only JSON documents. They could expand their scope to support other types of data, such as XML or...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon Keyspaces vs Amazon DynamoDB

Compared 37% of the time

Amazon Neptune vs Amazon DynamoDB

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon DocumentDB vs Amazon DynamoDB

Compared 12% of the time

Google Cloud Bigtable vs Amazon DynamoDB

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon Timestream vs Amazon DynamoDB

Compared 7% of the time

More Amazon DynamoDB Competitors

Chroma vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon Neptune vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 11% of the time

Pinecone vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 10% of the time

Neo4j AuraDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon DocumentDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon DynamoDB

February 2025

Download Amazon DynamoDB product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

February 2025

Download Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB product report

Also Known As

No data available

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB

Overview

Amazon DynamoDB is a scalable NoSQL database valued for its speed and cost efficiency, adept in handling unstructured data and delivering fast data retrieval without predefined schemas.

Amazon DynamoDB is recognized for seamless integration with AWS services and its ability to accommodate large datasets. It provides powerful performance with automatic scaling, JSON document storage, and requires no external configurations. Users appreciate the predictable performance and ease of use, although the documentation lacks clarity, and local access necessitates third-party tools. Complex queries can be challenging due to limited API options. Desired improvements include better integration with other services and an enhanced interface. The cost structure and data storage limitations present challenges with improvements needed in backup, restore, caching, and query performance.

What are the standout features of Amazon DynamoDB?

Scalability: Automatically adjusts capacity to accommodate workloads.
Integration: Seamless with various AWS services for comprehensive solutions.
NoSQL Flexibility: Adapts to diverse unstructured data needs.
JSON Storage: Stores and manages data in JSON format efficiently.
Automatic Scaling: Ensures efficient resource usage and cost management.

Which benefits should users consider in reviews?

Performance: Provides fast and efficient data retrieval.
Cost Efficiency: Manages data storage costs effectively.
Ease of Use: Offers a straightforward setup and management experience.
Flexibility: Adaptable to different data requirements and workloads.

Amazon DynamoDB is implemented in industries for IoT data management, weather data storage, localization automation, and large stream indexing. It's utilized for user data management in web services and e-commerce, providing high-performance, scalable storage solutions. Companies benefit from serverless architecture, JSON storage, and integration with Lambda for optimized data handling.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database service providing scalability, user-friendliness, and seamless integration, suitable for managing large volumes of structured and unstructured data across diverse applications.

Azure Cosmos DB is renowned for its scalability, stability, and ease of integration, offering robust support for multiple data models and APIs. Its capacity for handling unstructured data efficiently and providing real-time analytics makes it ideal for applications requiring high performance and global distribution. With features like automatic failover and integration with Microsoft products, users benefit from cost optimization and secure data handling. Enhancement opportunities include simplifying queries, improving documentation, and expanding backup and analytics functionalities.

What are the most important features of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

Scalability and Autoscaling: Efficiently handles growing data and user demands.
Multi-Model Support: Adapts to different data models seamlessly.
Global Distribution: Provides low-latency access across multiple regions.
Automatic Failover: Ensures high availability and reliability.
Integration with Microsoft Products: Offers seamless connectivity with Azure services.

What benefits should users look for in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reviews?

Performance and Speed: Exceptionally fast processing for real-time data analytics.
Cost Optimization: Tools for managing expenses effectively.
Secure Data Handling: Implements strong data security measures.
Flexible Data Ingestion: Supports diverse data ingestion methods.

Azure Cosmos DB is frequently used in sectors like web, mobile, IoT, and analytics. It supports applications as a key-value store, processes real-time data, and enables global scalability with low-latency access. Its big data management capabilities and integration with Azure services enhance its utility across industries.

Microsoft

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

Buyer's Guide

Amazon DynamoDB vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

January 2025

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