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Amazon Neptune vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Neptune
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
3
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
7.4
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Vector Databases (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Amazon Neptune is 16.2%, up from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 17.8%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Matthew Spieth - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful pattern identification, price well, and straightforward implementation
Relational databases are never good at identifying patterns in graphs or other similar relationships, whereas Amazon Neptune is. Amazon Neptune is good for identifying fraud and many banks are using it. For example, know that I go to certain places all the time that are connected with nodes and edges, such as gas stations, shops, and Amazon. Since people are creatures of habit, the banks can use those nodes and edges to make a model of where I like to shop and spend money. If they see something pop up that's out of character for me, then they know immediately that it is possible fraud. They can determine this because a purchase I made was somewhere I never go or because of geography.
Michael Calvin - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to integrate, has a shallow learning curve, and scales dynamically
Azure Cosmos DB is quick to adopt with a shallow learning curve. The average user can be operational within hours or days, handling small to medium data volumes. However, optimizing for ultra-high throughput scenarios involves a steeper learning curve, requiring substantial knowledge to master Azure Cosmos DB. Nonetheless, most users can leverage it as their operational data store with minimal effort. Our platform boasts several extensive language model features, particularly around summarization capabilities. We use vector searching in Azure Cosmos DB to facilitate the retrieval of an augmented generation model with our LLM implementation. It's a standard RAG implementation using Azure Cosmos DB. Compared to other options, a key advantage of vector indexing in Azure Cosmos DB is the ability to query documents alongside vectors. This pinpoints the precise information required for RAG in our LLM solution, granting us greater flexibility than vector searching in other Azure services. We integrated the vector database with the Azure OpenAI service for our LLM solution. The Azure AI services were simple to integrate with the vector database. There was a slight learning curve, especially as we were on the private preview of vector searching. This led to some hiccups with our existing database configurations, specifically regarding continuous backup. We couldn't enable continuous backup and vector searching simultaneously. However, this was solely due to our participation in the preview, and I'm confident this issue won't persist in the general availability release. Azure Cosmos DB is fantastic for searching large amounts of data when the data is within a single partition. Over the last two weekends, we ingested over 400 gigabytes of data into our Azure Cosmos DB database and saw no change in querying performance compared to when our database was only 20 gigabytes in size. This is impressive and powerful, but the scope is limited to those partition queries. The first benefit we've seen is increased developer productivity. Azure Cosmos DB is an easy database to work with. Its schema-less nature allows us to iterate quickly on our platform, develop new features, and store the associated data in Azure. Developers find it easy to use, eliminating the need for object-relational mapping tools and other overhead. Geographic replication and the ability to scale geographically is another advantage. This is challenging with other databases, even other NoSQL databases, but Azure Cosmos DB makes it easy. Cost optimization is a major benefit as well. We've been able to run our platform at a fraction of the infrastructure cost our customers incur when integrating with us. This allows us to focus resources on feature development and platform building rather than infrastructure maintenance. Azure Cosmos DB helped reduce the total cost of ownership. We don't need DBAs, system administrators, or typical IT staff to run the infrastructure because we can use Azure Cosmos DB as a platform or a software-as-a-service data storage solution. This makes the total cost of ownership significantly lower than any comparable solution using relational databases or other NoSQL solutions like MongoDB. We enable auto-scaling on all of our Azure Cosmos DB resources, which helps us achieve cost optimizations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is actually simple."
"Relational databases are never good at identifying patterns in graphs or other similar relationships, whereas Amazon Neptune is."
"Our customer is very satisfied with it."
"We primarily use Cosmos DB because it's a managed platform service, eliminating concerns about hosting and reliability."
"The best feature is the velocity to make a query."
"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."
"It gives us a lot of flexibility. The scaling is instantaneous as well. You immediately have all the resources available."
"The solution is used because we get faster response times with large data sets than with SQL. It's essential for us because we have half a billion rows, and we need to return them quickly."
"Cosmos DB is stable and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is scalable with multiple master files."
 

Cons

"Amazon Neptune could improve by spreading more awareness for others to have an understanding of the solution because the technology is fairly new. The developer community and larger community do not understand it yet."
"In my scenario, the integration wasn't easy because ................in Java."
"There is room for improvement in terms of stability."
"It is easy to use, but optimization has been a mixed experience. It has been more of trying to figure out how to do so. We have not found much support there, so we have to come up with our own way of optimizing it in different ways. That is one area of improvement."
"In Microsoft manufacturing, managers really need to know about the product."
"It would be nice to have more options to ingest the data, for example, more file options or more search options. Currently, you can use JSON, but if there were other file types you can use for data ingestion, that would be nice."
"Because there is no local way of doing things, Azure Cosmos DB will always be considered expensive."
"The integration of the on-premise solution with the cloud can be difficult sometimes."
"It should offer a simple user interface for querying Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."
"There should be a simpler way for data migration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS are on par for pricing and Google has been raising its prices."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is moderately priced, where it is neither expensive nor cheap."
"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."
"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 pricing model of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a bit complex."
"Pricing is one of the solution's main features because it is based on usage, scales automatically, and is not too costly."
"The pricing for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is good. 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."
"The solution is very expensive."
"Its pricing is higher compared to solutions like Aerospike. However, it is justified because of the out-of-the-box features that are provided. The availability and resiliency that we have make it worth the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Neptune?
When taken as part of the whole AWS contract, it was cheaper, but as a single service, Neptune was more expensive compared to Neo4j.
What needs improvement with Amazon Neptune?
Some improvements could be made by introducing a UI that would clearly show the vertices and connections, which would make it easier to visualize and debug. Additionally, the need for downtime duri...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Neptune?
So, I'm not using it currently, but when I was working with my last organization, which was a gaming company, we used Amazon Neptune for real-time fraud detection. We maintained user data, mobile d...
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?
Cosmos DB is a managed offering, so its cost is understandably higher. However, the value it provides aligns with its price, especially considering the discounts we receive. By purchasing reserved ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
Cosmos DB has a couple of areas for improvement. Firstly, the lack of multi-collection joins is a significant limitation. Secondly, Azure Synapse Link, their data warehousing and synchronization fe...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Intuit, Pearson, Samsung, Ignition One, Lifeomic, Blackfynn, Paysense
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Neptune vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
817,354 professionals have used our research since 2012.