Amazon QLDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the NoSQL Databases category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.0, while Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 0.5% mindshare in ND, compared to Microsoft’s 5.1% 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 QLDB

Read 1 Amazon QLDB review

168 Views
168 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Read 102 Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reviews

6,178 Views
988 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Amazon QLDB

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and Amazon QLDB are competing in the cloud database market. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB leads in pricing and support, while Amazon QLDB excels with advanced features, offering significant value despite higher costs.

Features: Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB provides globally distributed multi-model support and comprehensive SLAs, focusing on low-latency and high availability. Amazon QLDB offers a fully managed ledger database with data immutability and cryptographic verification, ensuring data integrity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Cosmos DB integrates seamlessly within the Azure ecosystem, simplifying deployment and scalability, especially for developers familiar with Microsoft services. Amazon QLDB focuses on ledger applications and data integrity tools, offering robust customer service within AWS for intuitive use by those leveraging AWS infrastructure.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers predictable pricing models, beneficial for global distribution needs. Amazon QLDB's pricing mirrors its high-end features, appealing to those requiring immutable records and transparent transaction logs, potentially leading to better ROI in specific scenarios.

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August 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 QLDB

Ranking in NoSQL Databases

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Ranking in NoSQL Databases

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

102

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Amazon QLDB is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 5.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NoSQL Databases

Featured Reviews

Balasubramanyam Kamarapu

Technical Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

A fast and affordable solution that is scalable and has a nice dashboard

The product enables the users to query results faster. It maintains all the versions of the changes done on a specific node. A traditional blockchain would take time, but Amazon QLDB is a bit faster. We have to do many operations in blockchain to read data, but QLDB comes with an easy syntax. The product provides a nice dashboard to view all the information.

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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 product enables the users to query results faster."

"The searching capability is exceptional. It is very simple and incomparable to competitors."

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

"The user interface of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is the best part of the entire Microsoft ecosystem; I find it to be the best user interface you can ever hope for, especially when compared to AWS and GCP, which do not measure up as well."

"It is integral to our business because it helps manage schema and metadata for all our documents and customers. The AI insights we glean based on Azure OpenAI also end up in Cosmos DB. We need a NoSQL store because the schema is dynamic and flexible, so Cosmos DB is a great fit. It has four nines or possibly five nines availability, excellent geo-distribution, and auto-scaling."

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is very fast. Data retrieval and data storage are very quick."

"It is a cloud-based solution that is easy to deploy, easy to access, and provides users with more features compared to other clouds like AWS and GCP."

"The most valuable aspect of Cosmos DB is its performance."

"Change notification works well, and the ability to process documents in a scalable way is important. This means we can efficiently thread out different operations and meet our organizational performance and scalability needs."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pros

Cons

"The product should enable users to import data from various databases."

"It doesn't support all databases."

"While Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is generally easy to use, it has some limitations."

"Areas of improvement for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB include indexing. While it makes data retrieval easier, it also increases costs."

"Azure Cosmos DB could be better for business intelligence and analytical queries."

"Right now, the vectors are stored as floating-point numbers within the NoSQL document, which makes them inefficiently large. This leads to increased storage space requirements, and searching through a vast number of documents in the vector database becomes quite costly in terms of RUs. While the integration works well, the expense associated with it is relatively high. I would really like to see a reduction in costs for their vector search, as it is currently on the expensive side."

"There are no particular factors that need improvement. There is a little bit of a learning curve with scaling workloads, but it works smoothly."

"Cosmos DB should continue evolving in AI features. 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. We must ensure data security remains the top priority."

"We are at the beginning of production, and everything is working very well. The price can always be lower, but currently, it's not a problem."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not expensive."

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is moderately priced, where it is neither expensive nor cheap."

"Because of the lack of understanding about RUs, the costs become unpredictable. It sometimes goes over the budget."

"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."

"You need to understand exactly the details of how the pricing works technically to stay within reasonable pricing."

"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."

"Its price is very good for the basic stuff. When you go to a more complicated use case, especially when you need replication and availability zones, it gets a little costly."

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

"There is a licensing fee."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Legal Firm

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon QLDB?

The product enables the users to query results faster.

See all answers

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

The product is not expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon QLDB?

The product should enable users to import data from various databases. It would be a nice additional improvement. It should also provide more instances.

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?

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?

The only area Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can improve on is its documentation; while it is solid and very useful, enhancements in the indexing documentation would help users save costs and make it mo...

See all answers

Comparisons

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MongoDB Enterprise Advanced vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon DynamoDB vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Neo4j Graph Database vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NoSQL Databases

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

August 2025

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Also Known As

Amazon Quantum Ledger Database

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB

Overview

Amazon QLDB is a fully managed ledger database that provides a transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable transaction log ‎owned by a central trusted authority. Amazon QLDB tracks each and every application data change and maintains a complete and verifiable history of changes over time.

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

accenture, digital asset, health direct, klarna, osano, realm, smaato, splunk, wipro, zilliant

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

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