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Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Vertica comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (3rd)
Vertica
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (5th), Cloud Data Warehouse (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
T Venkatesh - PeerSpot reviewer
Processes query faster through multiple systems simultaneously, but it could support different data types
We use the solution for various tasks, including preparing data marts and generating offers. It helps extract data based on rules from the policy team and provides insights to enhance business operations. We also analyze transactions to target customers and improve business performance The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I truly recommend Cosmos DB because it is a serverless product."
"It works reasonably fast. You can retain the original format of the document as received by the third-party system."
"The best feature is the velocity to make a query."
"The latency and availability of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are fantastic."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers exceptional stability, boasting a reliability rating of 99.95 percent."
"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."
"The product has a lot of useful features that are there and ready to use, it's also very easy to use."
"Azure Cosmos DB's resiliency is valuable. It is available in every Azure region, allowing quick information storage and retrieval. We can partition it to improve indexing, enabling us to retrieve information and recreate website content quickly."
"It's the fastest database I have ever tested. That's the most important feature of Vertica."
"DBAs don’t need to add a partition every month/quarter like with other DBs."
"Vertica enabled us to close large deals. Customers with large data sets had to be migrated from PostgreSQL to Vertica due to performance."
"I enjoy the cybersecurity and backup features."
"The Vertica architecture means it can process/ingest data in parallel to reporting and analyzing because of its in-memory Write-Optimized Storage sitting alongside the analytics optimized Read-Optimized Storage."
"Partition and join back to node are easy and simple for DBAs."
"The most valuable feature is Vertica's performance and the ease of using the database."
"Any novice user can tune vertical queries with minimal training (or no training at all)."
 

Cons

"A limitation in Azure Cosmos DB is the 2 MB document size. Developers need more systemic support in chaining multiple documents if more than 2 MB is required."
"I have to say technical support is not very good as it takes too long. Sometimes it can take them two or three days to respond to your ticket."
"Microsoft's support services are inadequate, especially during critical incidents."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, it works very well and fits the purpose regardless of the target application. However, by default, there is a threshold to accommodate bulk or large requests."
"Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL has a less developed interface and fewer SQL commands than MongoDB, and its community support is also smaller."
"There aren't any specific areas that need improvement, but if there were a way to achieve the right cosine similarity score without extensive testing, that would be very beneficial."
"Vertica's native cloud support could be improved, and its installation could be made easier."
"We are looking for a cheaper deployment for the solution. Although we did a lot of benchmarks, like Redshift. We tried Redshift, it didn't work. It didn't work out for us as well."
"In our company, we have faced difficulties in scaling the solution for certain use cases."
"Fact-to-fact joins on multi-billion record tables perform poorly."
"In a future release, we would like to have artificial intelligence capabilities like neural networks. Customers are demanding this type of analytics."
"There are a lot of limitations within this product and it makes things extremely hard for developers. It lacks Stored Procedure, packages, and triggers like other RDBMs."
"The integration with AI has room for improvement."
"Vertica offers a platform-as-a-service version, but their software-as-a-service solution is only available on AWS. They need to get a SaaS version on Azure and GCP as fast as possible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is not expensive."
"Cosmos DB gave us three accounts for $400. We pay according to the usage."
"Cost isn’t a big hurdle for us right now. The solution is not costly."
"Its pricing structure is quite flexible."
"Azure Cosmos DB's pricing is competitive, though there is a need for more personalized pricing models to accommodate small applications without incurring high charges. A suggestion is to implement dynamically adjustable pricing that accounts for various user needs."
"Cosmos DB's pricing structure has significantly improved in recent months, both in terms of its pricing model and how charges are calculated."
"The pricing is perceived as being on the higher side. However, if you have large data operations, it might reduce costs due to performance efficiencies."
"Our experience with the pricing and setup cost is that it aligns with what we expect based on the pricing we see. However, I would absolutely like it to be less if possible."
"The price of Vertica is less expensive than some competitors, such as Teradata."
"I think it's starting to get a little expensive. Open source products are starting to get more robust, so I think that's something that they need to start looking at in terms of licensing."
"The pricing for this solution is very reasonable compared to other vendors."
"Vertica is an expensive tool."
"Vertica has a perpetual license, but they are currently trying to convert all those licenses to subscription-based licenses on a yearly basis."
"It's difficult today to compete with open-source solutions. In these areas, there is a lot of competition and the price of this solution is a bit pricy."
"I am aware that we have licensed it, but I have no knowledge of its cost."
"It's free up to three nodes and 1TB, and then get in contact with their sales guys."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Legal Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 pricing is not bad. It is good. We have a contract with Microsoft to use their technology. In my opinion, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a good option for the total cost of ownership.
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...
What do you like most about Vertica?
Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vertica?
The solution is relatively cost-effective. Pricing and licensing are reasonable compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with Vertica?
The product could improve by adding support for a wider variety of data types and enhancing features to better compete with other databases.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
Micro Focus Vertica, HPE Vertica, HPE Vertica on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Cerner, Game Show Network Game, Guess by Marciano, Supercell, Etsy, Nascar, Empirix, adMarketplace, and Cardlytics.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Vertica and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.