Amazon Neptune 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 #7 with an average rating of 8.3, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 7.7% mindshare in MND, compared to Microsoft’s 16.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Amazon Neptune

Read 4 Amazon Neptune reviews

794 Views
794 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Read 103 Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reviews

7,774 Views
3,265 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Amazon Neptune

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and Amazon Neptune are competing cloud-based database solutions. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB has an upper hand in global distribution and multi-model support, while Amazon Neptune stands out for its graph database capabilities, potentially making it the preferable choice for specific applications.

Features: Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's strong global distribution, multi-model data support, and scalable throughput make it highly versatile for diverse applications. It allows seamless access to various data models, providing adaptability in data management. Amazon Neptune is ideal for graph applications with comprehensive support for graph models like RDF and Property Graphs. Neptune's graph-centric optimizations cater specifically to linking and analyzing complex node relationships, offering robust performance in graph-based use cases.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Cosmos DB is noted for its ease of deployment with well-integrated Microsoft Azure ecosystem tools, facilitating efficient operation for organizations already using Azure services. Its extensive support network is slightly ahead in customer service. Amazon Neptune offers seamless deployment but may require more effort in setting up specific use cases within AWS, affecting ease of integration compared to Cosmos.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB may incur a higher initial setup cost, yet it often delivers better long-term ROI due to its performance and scalability. Pricing begins at around $0.008 per 100 RU/s per hour, reflecting its investment in diverse capabilities. Amazon Neptune, while potentially more cost-efficient initially, offers pricing from approximately $0.098 per hour for db.r5.large instances. ROI varies depending on specific graph use cases.

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

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Neptune vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

September 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 Neptune

Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

4.5

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

7.0

Number of Reviews

103

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (4th), NoSQL Databases (2nd), Vector Databases (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Amazon Neptune is 7.7%, down from 14.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 16.3%, down from 16.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed NoSQL Databases Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB	16.3%
Amazon Neptune	7.7%
Other	76.0%

Managed NoSQL Databases

Featured Reviews

Reviewer3028812

Back End Developer at Zeta

Multiple graph models and languages support lead to efficient use, yet community growth brings challenges

The onboarding part and documentation where we could ideally use Amazon Neptune is excellent. Amazon Neptune as a product by AWS is exceptional because it supports multiple graph models such as RDF and property graph. It also has support for multiple querying languages such as Gremlin, SparkQL, and OpenCypher. It is very comprehensive in supporting every requirement we had at Zetta. Amazon Neptune's best features include its multiple servers, each supporting different languages such as OpenCypher, SparkQL, and RDF. For the same RDF graph or property graph, we could use multiple languages to query on different servers. This is exceptional because we have one graph DB with two endpoints exposed where we could interact with different languages on the same graph. Additionally, Amazon has a Sagemaker Jupyter Notebook which interacts with the Amazon Neptune database itself, providing a clean UI for representing nodes since the Jupyter Notebook has predefined graph representation capabilities through queries.

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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

"Amazon Neptune as a product by AWS is exceptional because it supports multiple graph models such as RDF and property graph, and it also has support for multiple querying languages such as Gremlin, SparkQL, and OpenCypher, making it very comprehensive in supporting every requirement we had at Zetta."

"Relational databases are never good at identifying patterns in graphs or other similar relationships, whereas Amazon Neptune is."

"The initial setup is actually simple."

"The connectors, such as the MongoDB connector and the integration with SQL, are incredibly valuable."

"It's highly scalable and supports consistency, security, and multiple security options."

"Cosmos DB is a document database that stores data in JSON format for faster retrieval of unstructured data. I personally appreciate the speed, which is significantly better for unstructured data, especially since Cosmos DB had JSON as a data type early on."

"It performs very well, especially under high load where it automatically scales up the RUs, and the main advantage of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its low latency, with response times in milliseconds, making it great for chatbots."

"The solution is user friendly and Microsoft's technical support is good."

"It's not a specific feature that I value, but the scalability of this system is the most impressive aspect."

"The graphical representation of data is the most valuable feature of the solution."

"Cosmos DB's greatest strengths are its easy setup and affordability, especially for those who understand its usage."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pros

Cons

"We had a strict time constraint, and it took many sleepless nights to find information in the documentation."

"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."

"We had a strict time constraint, and it took many sleepless nights to find information in the documentation."

"In my scenario, the integration wasn't easy because ................in Java."

"I would like the speed of transferring data to be improved."

"One of our biggest pain points is the backup and restore functionality needs improvement."

"The solution cannot join two databases like Oracle or SQL Server."

"I do not have any specific suggestions for improvements at the moment. However, having more AI capabilities in the future would be beneficial."

"It would be beneficial if Cosmos supported batch and real-time use cases to make the system more seamless."

"The support tickets are not cheap."

"The cost can sometimes be high, especially during cross-partition queries with large data amounts."

"There is room for improvement in terms of stability."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS are on par for pricing and Google has been raising its prices."

"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."

"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."

"Cosmos DB is cost-effective when starting but requires careful management."

"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."

"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."

"When we've budgeted for our resources, it's one of the more expensive ones, but it's still not very expensive per month."

"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 pricing for Cosmos DB has improved, particularly with the new pricing for Autoscale."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

17%

Construction Company

University

Legal Firm

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	55

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Neptune?

The cost aspects were managed by our SRE team who provisioned the instances. The pricing structure is similar to how EC2 instance pricing varies. I was informed that it was somewhat expensive, thou...

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What needs improvement with Amazon Neptune?

The main issue was the limited community of Amazon Neptune users, which meant everything needed to be explored independently. Although this was adventurous, it required more time investment in the ...

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What is your primary use case for Amazon Neptune?

We managed traffic at Zetta, and traffic would be moving between multiple services in our microservice architecture. Because of this setup, we were using Amazon Neptune to understand how many reque...

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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?

The pricing for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is good, but there is a developer factor to consider. It could be economical or expensive depending on usage. Guidance about query consumption of Request U...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

In terms of improvement for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, while it eliminates the burden of managing database infrastructure, we realized it might not be possible to use various models simultaneously ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 28% of the time

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Compared 18% of the time

Amazon DocumentDB vs Amazon Neptune

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon Timestream vs Amazon Neptune

Compared 10% of the time

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Chroma vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 10% of the time

Pinecone vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 9% of the time

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 7% of the time

Neo4j Graph Database vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 6% of the time

PostgreSQL vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Neptune

October 2025

Download Amazon Neptune product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

September 2025

Download Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB product report

Also Known As

No data available

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB

Overview

Amazon Neptune is a fast, reliable, fully managed graph database service that makes it easy to build and run applications that work with highly connected datasets. The core of Amazon Neptune is a purpose-built, high-performance graph database engine optimized for storing billions of relationships and querying the graph with milliseconds latency. Amazon Neptune supports popular graph models Property Graph and W3C's RDF, and their respective query languages Apache TinkerPop Gremlin and SPARQL, allowing you to easily build queries that efficiently navigate highly connected datasets. Neptune powers graph use cases such as recommendation engines, fraud detection, knowledge graphs, drug discovery, and network security.

Amazon Neptune is highly available, with read replicas, point-in-time recovery, continuous backup to Amazon S3, and replication across Availability Zones. Neptune is secure with support for HTTPS encrypted client connections and encryption at rest. Neptune is fully managed, so you no longer need to worry about database management tasks such as hardware provisioning, software patching, setup, configuration, or backups.

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

Intuit, Pearson, Samsung, Ignition One, Lifeomic, Blackfynn, Paysense

TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Neptune vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

September 2025

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