Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Couchbase vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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

Couchbase
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Couchbase is 10.1%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 3.3%. 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Sync Gateway is a great feature that supports the mobile application."
"It can scale horizontally, and we are looking to expand our capacity."
"The principal advantage of Couchbase is that we can have multiple database paradigms in the same product, without deploying multiple databases. We also like that it has lower latency, when compared to its competitor: Cassandra."
"It is pretty stable."
"The valuable features of Couchbase are the many documents and index types, and they made a lot of features available enabling us to use it as a complete solution for our needs."
"The most valuable features are the ease of application and the merging of data."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"Investing in Couchbase has significantly lowered our operational costs and increased throughput, reducing costs by half and supporting around five times the non-peak user volume during peak hours."
"The graphical representation of data is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"It has been very efficient so far. The team has been using it for quite a while. I am new to the team, but they always talk about how efficient it is."
"I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability."
"The customer gave us the feedback that they are able to easily find the data they are looking for. It is very quick."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its real-time analytics capabilities, which allow for turnaround times in milliseconds."
"The solution is used because we get faster response times with large data sets than with SQL. It's essential for us because we have half a billion rows, and we need to return them quickly."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is fast, and its performance is good compared to normal SQL DB."
"I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"It is very difficult to load the backup of the older version to the newer version."
"I would like Couchbase to provide more functionality via the UI, as some operations, such as time-based scaling, currently require using the API."
"Although it worked pretty well, in some scenarios, we noticed issues where the replications and the sharding were not happening correctly."
"The main problem has been with integration with the services."
"I would like Couchbase to provide more functionality via the UI, as some operations, such as time-based scaling, currently require using the API."
"The performance could be quicker and better, especially in the querying process."
"Couchbase could improve the design of the UI because it should be optimized for viewing statistics or a similar feature."
"I have tried multiple libraries in a demo they provide and it works fine, but when it merges with libraries, it creates a problem."
"I would like the speed of transferring data to be improved."
"One area of improvement for Cosmos database is the auto-scaling of RUs during high loads. It would be beneficial if the database could automatically scale resources rather than requiring manual adjustments."
"In the long run, there should be an addition of more features, especially because this space is evolving quickly. It all boils down to how many more features you are adding, how many integrations you are supporting, and how many more APIs you have that are standard APIs."
"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."
"We encountered an issue with Cosmos DB's recently introduced hierarchical partition feature."
"It would be ideal if we could integrate Cosmos DB with our Databricks. At this point, that's not possible."
"The current data analytics of Cosmos DB is inefficient for large-scale queries due to its transactional design."
"I would like to see Cosmos DB introduce a feature that would convert machine language to human-readable queries."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I wouldn't say Couchbase offers good value for money."
"It seems very reasonable. It's a lot cheaper than Redis, but we've got an enterprise license. So, it's about normal. It's not outrageous in price as far as we've seen. From Couchbase, there's no additional fee as far as I'm aware, but when you're integrating, there's an additional fee because a lot of times, they don't have an integration stack."
"I would rate this solution a nine out of ten for pricing as it is affordable."
"It can range between 25,000 to 40,000 Euros per year depending on company requirements."
"The price of this solution is better than some of the other competitors."
"We estimate that it's not very expensive, however, the pricing that you can get from the account managers, e.g. the public pricing, could be a bit expensive."
"The licensing cost of Couchbase is quite expensive compared to other databases."
"Cosmos DB is a highly cost-optimized solution when used correctly."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's licensing costs are monthly."
"It is expensive. The moment you have high availability options and they are mixed with the type of multitenant architecture you use, the pricing is on the higher end."
"Cosmos should be cheaper. We actually intend to stop using it in the near future because the price is too high."
"The RU's use case determines our license fees."
"When we've budgeted for our resources, it's one of the more expensive ones, but it's still not very expensive per month."
"Cosmos DB is a PaaS, so there are no upfront costs for infrastructure. There are only subscriptions you pay for Azure and things like that. But it's a PaaS, so it's a subscription service. The license isn't perpetual, and the cost might seem expensive on its face, but you have to look at the upkeep for infrastructure and what you're saving."
"Its cost is transparent. Pricing depends on the transaction and data size, but overall, it is cheaper compared to hosting it on your corporate network due to other factors like power consumption."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which NoSQL Databases solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Legal Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Couchbase?
I would like Couchbase to provide more functionality via the UI, as some operations, such as time-based scaling, currently require using the API. While I find Couchbase's feature set to be generall...
What is your primary use case for Couchbase?
Our primary use case for Couchbase is related to the iGaming industry, particularly for high-performance reads and writes to meet our SLA for high volumes. We have a particular use case where there...
What advice do you have for others considering Couchbase?
Couchbase, especially under high load conditions, is imperative for providing a great user experience due to its stability and scalability, which reduces costs and scales efficiently. I rate Couchb...
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?
Its cost is transparent. Pricing depends on the transaction and data size, but overall, it is cheaper compared to hosting it on your corporate network due to other factors like power consumption. C...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I had a challenging experience implementing the emulator with a Mac. I had to install the emulator in a Docker container because it is not natively compatible. A significant amount of time was spen...
 

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 vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.