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Amazon Timestream vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

Amazon Timestream
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
5
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
102
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (5th), NoSQL Databases (2nd), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Amazon Timestream is 6.8%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 16.3%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB16.3%
Amazon Timestream6.8%
Other76.9%
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Sushil Pandey - PeerSpot reviewer
It is helpful to get telemetry data from the devices in real-time
It is an easily scalable solution. When it comes to the retention period, if someone wants to change, they have to define it at the start. Later on, if users want to change it again, like, or increase the retention policy, then they have to create the table again and do so, and if it is not done, then we face problems. It will increase the retention, but when you try to insert a record or an older record that is not included in the range of your retention period, then you can face some problems and, like, it will throw some errors. The tool is scalable, but it should be defined at the start as to how much retention you want. For scalability, I rate the tool a six or seven out of ten.
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

"You can quickly aggregate data from the last ten years with Amazon Timestream."
"Using Amazon Timestream has been seamless due to its integration within the AWS ecosystem and ease of use for the engineering team."
"If you drop a message, the solution's technical support will definitely reply."
"What I like best is that the tool is easy to collect and store data and is fast and scalable. The fully managed database is easy to understand."
"The best things about Amazon Timestream are it's maintenance-free, customizable, and has no lag issues. It's always real-time."
"For modern applications, I would recommend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."
"The efficiency of search capabilities is significant, particularly when it comes to the flexibility of conducting in-depth, almost recursive searches that are both efficient and cost-effective."
"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."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's most valuable feature is latency."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB simplifies the process of saving and retrieving data."
"The product has a lot of useful features that are there and ready to use, it's also very easy to use."
"Cosmos is a PaaS, so you don't need to worry about infrastructure and hosting. It has various APIs that allow it to integrate with other solutions. For example, we are using a MongoDB-compatible API for customers, which makes it easier for developers on the team who previously used MongoDB or are accustomed to the old document storage paradigm."
"The high speed of Azure Cosmos DB compared to other competitors is remarkable."
 

Cons

"The solution could be improved by making it easier for new graduates like me to use. Better explanations of queries and how to use them with other AWS services would help."
"There are disadvantages when it comes to time series databases since you can't delete anything from Amazon Timestream data."
"There are certain features that we would like to see added and we are collaborating with the product teams on these areas."
"The tool could be improved by increasing the batch size from one hundred records to five hundred or a thousand to speed up indexing."
"Arranging the database schema is a bit challenging."
"Areas of improvement for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB include indexing. While it makes data retrieval easier, it also increases costs."
"The support tickets are not cheap."
"It would be ideal if we could integrate Cosmos DB with our Databricks. At this point, that's not possible."
"We encountered an issue with Cosmos DB's recently introduced hierarchical partition feature."
"The cost is a concern. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB did not decrease our total cost of ownership. From the standpoint of the old way of doing DBA operations, it did, but our cloud cost increased significantly."
"Microsoft's support services are inadequate, especially during critical incidents."
"In that scenario, two things can be improved."
"It would be beneficial if Cosmos supported batch and real-time use cases to make the system more seamless."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon Timestream's pricing seems manageable to me."
"We pay over $10 million a year to Amazon."
"We don't see high costs with Amazon Timestream, which may vary by company."
"For 1GB of data, the solution charges $ 0.01 in the US region."
"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."
"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."
"Its price is in the middle, neither too low nor too high."
"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."
"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."
"It is cost-efficient as long as you understand the right setup to optimize usage. Knowing the data needs of the organization and adjusting the Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB usage accordingly helps save costs, but if you don't know, you could end up spending more than necessary."
"The RU's use case determines our license fees."
"The solution is a bit on the expensive side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Legal Firm
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise55
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon Timestream?
We are working on a few open change requests with the engineering teams on AWS's side. There are certain features that we would like to see added and we are collaborating with the product teams on ...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Timestream?
We use Amazon Timestream as a data historian for IT data. It stores all individual measurements of our customers' IoT devices for a certain period of time, allowing them to perform time-series-base...
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?
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...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Timestream vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.