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Google Cloud Bigtable 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Cloud Bigtable
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
6
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
81
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Vector Databases (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Bigtable is 5.6%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 16.0%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Aakash Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Great for streaming data and being a managed service is an advantage
Our primary use case is for analytics, analyzing the data sets and curing Bigtable is very user-friendly where streaming data is required. I think it's relatively easier to use than Ascentra. The fact that it's a managed service is an advantage.   The cost of this product is too expensive.…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very user-friendly where streaming data is required."
"The most valuable feature is the backup and replication service."
"Bigtable is faster than other competitors in the market. It helps us collate all the data, and the security features are great. The latency is low, and the computation speed is fantastic. Bigtable is also a managed service, so you don't have to worry about anything aside from analyzing the data ingested."
"The solution is very convenient."
"Stability-wise, it is a simple solution. I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Our team has found the vCore index to be one of the most valuable features. We have tokenized and vectorized our entire database and stored this data in MongoDB collections with a vCore index, which works like magic for keyword selection."
"rate Azure support nine out of 10. They respond quickly and will help you manage costs. However, they mainly give you an overview of the issue, so they'll never have an in-depth idea of what you're doing. They aren't the owners of our product, so they don't know much about it, but they can ask you generally: What are you doing? Are you doing too many updates? How can we reduce the cost?"
"The most valuable features include the global write capability, which allows customers to read and write across different regions simultaneously, enhancing performance and availability."
"Scaling the workloads is one of the key advantages of Cosmos, preventing the database from becoming a performance bottleneck."
"The solution is extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate."
"Switching to the cloud significantly improved scalability, flexibility, and uptime."
"I appreciate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's robust document management and consistent availability."
"The ability to scale automatically is very valuable."
 

Cons

"I've used Bigtable for about three or four years."
"Improvement should be made as per customer recommended and requirements."
"This product needs better security and transparency, and the price should be reduced."
"The cost of this product is too expensive."
"When it comes to complex queries, a user can't get any help from a drop-down box and pick columns. It would be great if some improvements could be made in the aforementioned area concerning the solution."
"The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There are no particular factors that need improvement. There is a little bit of a learning curve with scaling workloads, but it works smoothly."
"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."
"There are multiple approaches to implementing multitenant architecture on Azure Cosmos DB, but there is still no single or best-recommended approach when you have a big variance in the size of your tenants. That is something that still needs to be worked on."
"One of our biggest pain points is the backup and restore functionality needs improvement."
"One of our biggest pain points is the backup and restore functionality needs improvement. They've gotten a little better in this area. SQL Server's long-term retention is amazing, and you can restore data from years ago. You need to open a support Microsoft ticket to restore your Cosmos DB backup, and it comes in on a different Cosmos account. It's just kind of a headache to restore data."
"In the long run, there should be an addition of more features, especially because this space is evolving quickly. It all boils down to how many more features you are adding, how many integrations you are supporting, and how many more APIs you have that are standard APIs."
"The current data analytics of Cosmos DB is inefficient for large-scale queries due to its transactional design."
"We expect Cosmos DB to lead on that. There is potential for improved security features, which is important for data storage, especially for Dell Technologies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Pricing, at times, is not super clear because they use the request unit (RU) model. To manage not just Azure Cosmos DB but what you are receiving for the dollars paid is not easy. It is very abstract. They could do a better job of connecting Azure Cosmos DB with the value or some variation of that."
"From a startup point of view, it appears to be expensive. If I were to create my startup, it would not have the pricing appeal compared to the competition, such as Supabase. All those other databases are well-advertised by communities. I know there is a free tier with Azure Cosmos DB. It is just not well advertised."
"I would rate Cosmos DB's cost at seven out of ten, with ten being the highest."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's licensing costs are monthly."
"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."
"Microsoft provides fair pricing."
"Cost isn’t a big hurdle for us right now. The solution is not costly."
"Cosmos DB is a managed offering, so its cost is understandably higher."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
University
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Legal Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud Bigtable?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Bigtable?
The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required. In general, the performance of the product needs improvement.
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Bigtable?
When a client gives our organization a project where they need a dashboard for their company, they provide us with some data from their database, which is usually presented in Google Cloud Bigtable...
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?
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cognite, Dow Jones, Loblaw Digital
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
841,605 professionals have used our research since 2012.