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Cassandra 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

Cassandra
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
6th
Ranking in Vector Databases
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
2nd
Ranking in Vector Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (5th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 8.7%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 5.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NoSQL Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB5.9%
Cassandra8.7%
Other85.4%
NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Himanshu Amodwala - PeerSpot reviewer
Well-equipped to handle a massive influx of data and billions of requests
The use of Cassandra in real-time data analytics has been pivotal for our e-commerce platform. As our platform operates 24/7, providing services to sellers and customers alike, the need for real-time updates is paramount. For instance, when a customer leaves comments or feedback on an image, they anticipate an immediate reflection of these changes on the portal. Similarly, sellers altering product attributes or updating images expect instant visibility of these modifications. Handling large data volumes with Cassandra has been an excellent experience. Despite challenges related to the influx, these were not attributed to Cassandra itself but rather to middle-layer issues. Generally, it demonstrated scalability with workloads, thanks to its horizontal scaling capabilities. We could easily add new nodes to the system as needed, ensuring the platform coped well with increasing loads. The tool's most beneficial feature for scalability is its entire architecture. The absence of a single point of failure or a leader within the ecosystem contributes to its robust scalability. This key aspect influenced our decision to opt for the Cassandra ecosystem. In terms of performance, it demonstrated the ability to handle approximately 1.6 billion requests per day. This was achieved on AWS using EC2 instances, and it was during a period about four to five years ago.
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

"The solution's database capabilities are very good."
"The most valuable features of Cassandra are the NoSQL database, high performance, and zero-copy streaming."
"The time series data was one of the best features along with auto publishing."
"A consistent solution."
"Overall, I would rate Cassandra as nine because of its fast writes, which really suit our use cases mostly."
"I am satisfied with the performance."
"Some of the valued features of this solution are it has good performance and failover."
"Cassandra offers high availability and fault tolerance, making it suitable for large-scale data storage and real-time processing."
"The biggest benefit it offers is scalability. It's easier to work with concurrency and updating data."
"The best feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is the replication all over the world."
"The autoscale feature is the most useful for us."
"With Azure being our main cloud, the valuable features of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB include integration with other Azure products that we're using and governance inside Azure. For integration with other products inside the Azure cloud, it was a better choice."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers the response times needed for advanced analytics applications."
"Overall, I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a nine out of ten."
"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."
"The solution is extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate."
 

Cons

"It can be difficult to analyze what's going on inside of the database relative to other databases. It can also be difficult to troubleshoot sometimes."
"There could be more integration, and it could be more user-friendly."
"Depending upon our schema, we can't make ORDER BY or GROUP BY clauses in the product."
"We experience configuration issues when accommodating the volumes we require, which often necessitates consultation with the Cassandra development team."
"The secondary index in Cassandra was a bit problematic and could be improved."
"Cassandra is very complex to manage. Sometimes, I need to involve a senior DevOps engineer if we encounter a problem."
"The initial setup of Cassandra can be difficult in the configuration. There might be a need to have assistance. The implementation process can six months for connecting to certain databases."
"The solution is limited to a linear performance."
"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."
"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."
"The current data analytics of Cosmos DB is inefficient for large-scale queries due to its transactional design."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can be improved by providing more fine-grained control over certain aspects, such as connections and threads. There could be more control over how many connections are made."
"It would be beneficial if Cosmos supported batch and real-time use cases to make the system more seamless."
"The query searching functionality has some complexities and could be more user-friendly."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't have the specific numbers on pricing, but it was fairly priced."
"We pay for a license."
"I use the tool's open-source version."
"We are using the open-source version of Cassandra, the solution is free."
"Cassandra is a free open source solution, but there is a commercial version available called DataStax Enterprise."
"There are licensing fees that must be paid, but I'm not sure if they are paid monthly or yearly."
"Cosmos DB is expensive compared to any virtual machine based on conventional RDBMS like MySQL or PostgreSQL."
"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 expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing. Although they have a serverless layer, there are deficiencies in what I can define and assign to a database. Estimating infrastructure needs is not straightforward, making it challenging to manage costs."
"It is cost-effective. They offer two pricing models. One is the serverless model and the other one is the vCore model that allows provisioning the resources as necessary. For our pilot projects, we can utilize the serverless model, monitor the usage, and adjust resources as needed."
"There is a licensing fee."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise55
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cassandra?
The use of Cassandra in real-time data analytics has been pivotal for our e-commerce platform. As our platform operates 24/7, providing services to sellers and customers alike, the need for real-ti...
What needs improvement with Cassandra?
While Cassandra can handle NoSQL, I think there should be more flexibility for whole schema design when data is stored in wide columns. Additionally, I believe that eventual consistency should be e...
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

1. Apple 2. Netflix 3. Facebook 4. Instagram 5. Twitter 6. eBay 7. Spotify 8. Uber 9. Airbnb 10. Adobe 11. Cisco 12. IBM 13. Microsoft 14. Yahoo 15. Reddit 16. Pinterest 17. Salesforce 18. LinkedIn 19. Hulu 20. Airbnb 21. Walmart 22. Target 23. Sony 24. Intel 25. Cisco 26. HP 27. Oracle 28. SAP 29. GE 30. Siemens 31. Volkswagen 32. Toyota
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Cassandra vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
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