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Couchbase Enterprise vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 31, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Companies reduced costs and increased speed-to-market with Couchbase Enterprise by replacing Redis and enhancing efficiency and productivity.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reduces total cost through dynamic scaling, eliminating dedicated admins, and offering global distribution efficiency.
Reducing costs by half and supporting around five times the non-peak user volume during peak hours.
Couchbase maintained consistent productivity as a finished solution that worked well, saving us time dealing with something less efficient.
Getting an MVP of that project would have taken six to eight months, but because we had an active choice of using Azure Cosmos DB and other related cloud-native services of Azure, we were able to get to an MVP stage in a matter of weeks, which is six weeks.
You can react quickly and trim down the specs, memory, RAM, storage size, etc. It can save about 20% of the costs.
When I have done comparisons or cost calculations, I have sometimes personally seen as much as 25% to 30% savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Couchbase Enterprise support is largely positive but could improve in proactive support and personalized solutions for larger organizations.
Sentiment score
6.7
Feedback on Azure Cosmos DB's support varies, highlighting fast assistance with premium plans but inconsistency and delays otherwise.
The support team has been helpful with VNET configuration, Sync Gateway, and other technical issues.
We used the documentation, which was well-written and clear.
Premier Support has deteriorated compared to what it used to be, especially for small to medium-sized customers like ours.
The response was quick.
I would rate customer service and support a nine out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Couchbase Enterprise offers strong scalability, despite some challenges, proving ideal for large-scale data management and high throughput.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers scalable solutions with auto-scaling and partitioning, managing large workloads efficiently while reducing costs.
Couchbase is extremely scalable, which is critical when handling high throughput and load.
It was easily scalable, which is expected from a NoSQL database.
The system scales up capacity when needed and scales down when not in use, preventing unnecessary expenses.
We like that it can auto-scale to demand, ensuring we only pay for what we use.
We have had no issues with its ability to search through large amounts of data.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Couchbase Enterprise is stable and reliable, though minor bugs and compatibility issues with updates can affect performance.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is highly stable, reliable, and globally robust, offering strong performance and low latency despite minor issues.
We didn't experience any downtime, and the data stayed there consistently.
Couchbase is highly stable, rated at nine out of ten.
Once it's set up, it's easy to use, and there are no headaches.
We have multiple availability zones, so nothing goes down.
Azure Cosmos DB would be a good choice if you have to deploy your application in a limited time frame and you want to auto-scale the database across different applications.
I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of availability and latency.
 

Room For Improvement

Couchbase Enterprise faces challenges with system integration, scalability, support lag, documentation, and complex operations needing improvements.
Azure Cosmos DB needs better cost models, performance, documentation, query capabilities, integration, analytics, security, and operational features.
I would like Couchbase to provide more functionality via the UI, as some operations, such as time-based scaling, currently require using the API.
This delay meant that data on another database, Elasticsearch, was not always up to date, which could be noticed in the games.
What is missing is that they have a new version, Couchbase Mobile three, but they haven't really updated or provided help or documentation about what needs to change to update to the latest mobile version.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
You have to monitor the Request Units.
The dashboard could include more detailed RU descriptions, IOPS, and compute metrics.
 

Setup Cost

Couchbase Enterprise offers flexible pricing with potential complexity, requiring careful consideration of licensing costs and integration expenses.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's pricing is complex yet flexible, offering scalability and cost-effectiveness with efficient resource management.
It can range between 25,000 to 40,000 Euros per year depending on company requirements.
They did update, and since then, I haven't had any problems anymore.
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.
Cosmos DB is expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing.
Cosmos DB is great compared to other databases because we can reduce the cost while doing the same things.
 

Valuable Features

Couchbase Enterprise offers scalability, diverse paradigms, fast performance, mobile support, and ease of use with strong analytics and management.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers scalable, secure, and high-performance features with seamless integration, enhancing application efficiency and global user satisfaction.
The most valuable features of Couchbase include the key-value storage due to its speed and the multi-master capability, which provides more speed and scalability compared to master-slave databases.
The best thing about Couchbase is its versatility in handling data.
We didn't experience any downtime.
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its real-time analytics capabilities, which allow for turnaround times in milliseconds.
Performance and security are valuable features, particularly when using Cosmos DB for MongoDB emulation and NoSQL.
The performance and scaling capabilities of Cosmos DB are excellent, allowing it to handle large workloads compared to other services such as Azure AI Search.
 

Categories and Ranking

Couchbase Enterprise
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
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 Couchbase Enterprise is 8.7%, down from 12.2% 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

Ravi_Singh  - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports multiple data models and offers AI capabilities
With some of the operations, we used to face some challenges with scalability. Although it worked pretty well, in some scenarios, we noticed issues where the replications and the sharding were not happening correctly. In recent versions, we also faced some issues in terms of enabling advanced operations like FTS and vectors. Although it works pretty well, in some places, we do face challenges, especially on a heavy scale. I think all issues are being addressed in the latest version of Couchbase. The resources are not that good for Couchbase. The tool's documentation is pretty extensive, but if you go for any kind of courses or tutorials, there are very limited resources available. It also becomes a little bit challenging for new people to get onboard into it. MongoDB and other such open-source database tools perform really well as they're really widely adopted, and they have resources available to get you onboarded pretty quickly. I think that we do face some challenges with Couchbase, but luckily, we have the tool's enterprise version solution, so we get all the support from the product team.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Couchbase?
The main issue we keep facing from the past couple of years, observing other teams using Couchbase, is that whenever there is an upgrade, we see many issues with compatibility or nodes not intercon...
What is your primary use case for Couchbase?
Basically we have clusters, Couchbase clusters, databases, and that is how we use Couchbase with XDCR. All the clusters are set up and then we use Couchbase. It is a complex application setup we us...
What advice do you have for others considering Couchbase?
It is a good solution, but as every product needs improvement, this also needs some enhancement. It is a good product. I rate Couchbase seven out of ten.
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?
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amadeus, Cisco, Comcast, LinkedIn, GE
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Couchbase Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.