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

Elastic Search 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.0
Organizations report increased efficiency and ROI from Elastic Search, with proper implementation and data integration being crucial.
Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reduces costs and streamlines operations with auto-scaling, aiding quick deployment and effective performance management.
We have not purchased any licensed products, and our use of Elastic Search is purely open-source, contributing positively to our ROI.
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
6.6
Elastic Search's customer service is supported by a strong community and resources, though response times can be slow.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB support varies, with premium users satisfied but others find responsiveness and expertise inconsistent and variable.
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
7.2
Elastic Search offers strong scalability and ease of use but may face challenges with large databases and complex indexes.
Sentiment score
7.9
Azure Cosmos DB efficiently scales to meet diverse industry needs, optimizing cost and resources, with manageable configuration challenges.
I can actually add more storage and memory because I host it in the cloud.
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
7.7
Elastic Search is stable and reliable for enterprise use, with occasional issues in large-scale data or new releases.
Sentiment score
8.0
Azure Cosmos DB is highly reliable with 99.99% availability, low latency, efficient auto-failover, and excellent user ratings.
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

Elastic Search users seek improved security, scalability, integration, and support, alongside better UI, onboarding, and licensing enhancements.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB requires improvements in query complexity, integration, documentation, pricing clarity, performance, support, and backup solutions.
This can create problems for new developers because they have to quickly switch to another version.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
You have to monitor the Request Units.
The first one is the ability to assign role-based access control through the Azure portal for accounts to have contributor rights.
 

Setup Cost

Elastic Search is cost-effective initially but can become expensive with additional nodes and premium features despite flexible licensing.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's flexible pricing model balances potential high costs with discounts and optimized configurations for enterprise needs.
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

ELK offers fast search, scalable architecture, advanced analytics, and integration with Logstash, X-Pack, for flexible, cost-effective enterprise data management.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers enhanced performance, scalability, and flexibility, making it ideal for diverse applications and seamless data management.
Elastic Search makes handling large data volumes efficient and supports complex search operations.
Aggregation is faster than querying directly from a database, like Postgres or Vertica.
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

Elastic Search
Ranking in Vector Databases
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Indexing and Search (1st), Cloud Data Integration (9th), Search as a Service (1st)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Vector Databases
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Vector Databases category, the mindshare of Elastic Search is 5.4%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 3.0%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vector Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Captures data from all other sources and becomes a MOM aka monitoring of monitors
Scalability and ROI are the areas they have to improve. Their license terms are based on the number of cores. If you increase the number of cores, it becomes very difficult to manage at a large scale. For example, if I have a $3 million project, I won't sell it because if we're dealing with a 10 TB or 50 TB system, there are a lot of systems and applications to monitor, and I have to make an MOM (Mean of Max) for everything. This is because of the cost impact. Also, when you have horizontal scaling, it's like a multi-story building with only one elevator. You have to run around, and it's not efficient. Even the smallest task becomes difficult. That's the problem with horizontal scaling. They need to improve this because if they increase the cores and adjust the licensing accordingly, it would make more sense.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Vector Databases solutions are best for your needs.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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 do you like most about ELK Elasticsearch?
Logsign provides us with the capability to execute multiple queries according to our requirements. The indexing is very high, making it effective for storing and retrieving logs. The real-time anal...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ELK Elasticsearch?
I don't know about pricing. That is dealt with by the sales team and our account team. I was not involved with that.
What needs improvement with ELK Elasticsearch?
I found an issue with Elasticsearch in terms of aggregation. They are good, yet the rules written for this are not really good. There is a maximum of 10,000 entries, so the limitation means that if...
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

Elastic Enterprise Search, Swiftype, Elastic Cloud
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

T-Mobile, Adobe, Booking.com, BMW, Telegraph Media Group, Cisco, Karbon, Deezer, NORBr, Labelbox, Fingerprint, Relativity, NHS Hospital, Met Office, Proximus, Go1, Mentat, Bluestone Analytics, Humanz, Hutch, Auchan, Sitecore, Linklaters, Socren, Infotrack, Pfizer, Engadget, Airbus, Grab, Vimeo, Ticketmaster, Asana, Twilio, Blizzard, Comcast, RWE and many others.
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic Search vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.