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Google Cloud Bigtable vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 15, 2026

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

Google Cloud Bigtable
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Non-Relational Databases (5th)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (4th), NoSQL Databases (2nd), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Bigtable is 5.9%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 15.7%, down from 16.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB15.7%
Google Cloud Bigtable5.9%
Other78.4%
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Team Lead at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Consistent performance and seamless cloud integration enhance analytics capabilities while reducing management complexity
One point for improvement in Google Cloud Bigtable is that people have confusion in mapping. There are many similar products available, and Google has managed services for similar products as well. It would be easier if the journey of knowing when to use Google Cloud Bigtable versus other Cloud SQL and alternates such as Cloud Spanner is made clearer for users. Regarding additional functionality for Google Cloud Bigtable, I am uncertain if LLMs can be integrated or if Google Cloud Bigtable can act as a vector store for LLM-specific use cases where we are interacting or using generative AI capabilities.
reviewer2724105 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director of Product Management at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides super sharp latency, excellent availability, and the ability to effectively manage costs across different tenants
For integrating Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB with other Azure products or other products, there are a couple of challenges with the current system. Right now, the vectors are stored as floating-point numbers within the NoSQL document, which makes them inefficiently large. This leads to increased storage space requirements, and searching through a vast number of documents in the vector database becomes quite costly in terms of RUs. While the integration works well, the expense associated with it is relatively high. I would really like to see a reduction in costs for their vector search, as it is currently on the expensive side. The areas for improvement in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are vector pricing and vector indexing patterns, which are unintuitive and not well described. I would also like to see the parameters of Fleet Spaces made more powerful, as currently, it's somewhat lightweight. I believe they've made those changes intentionally to better understand the cost model. However, we would like to take a more aggressive approach in using it. One of the most frustrating aspects of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB right now is that you can only store one vector per document. Additionally, you must specify the configuration of that vector when you create an instance of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. Once the database is set up, you can't change the vector configuration, which is incredibly limiting for experimentation. You want the ability to try different settings and see how they perform, as there are numerous use cases for storing more than one vector in a document. While interoperability within the vector database is acceptable—for example, I can search for vectors—I still desire a richer set of configuration options.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you have a lot of data, it's really scalable and it's competitive."
"The main benefit I receive from Google Cloud Bigtable is the managed service part."
"Bigtable is very user-friendly where streaming data is required."
"I like the drive and the support of this program."
"The main benefit I receive from Google Cloud Bigtable is the managed service part."
"The most valuable feature is the backup and replication service."
"Bigtable is faster than other competitors in the market, it helps us collate all the data, the security features are great, the latency is low, the computation speed is fantastic, and it is also a managed service, so you don't have to worry about anything aside from analyzing the data ingested."
"Bigtable is faster than other competitors in the market. It helps us collate all the data, and the security features are great. The latency is low, and the computation speed is fantastic. Bigtable is also a managed service, so you don't have to worry about anything aside from analyzing the data ingested."
"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."
"I like the scalability. There aren't any constraints for posting in the geolocation. I also like the SQL architecture."
"Their new feature, dynamic data masking, is very cool and useful for us."
"It's not a specific feature that I value, but the scalability of this system is the most impressive aspect."
"The best features of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are the way it maintains the data in partitions and its retention policies."
"The benefits of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB were immediate for us."
"Cosmos DB is a document database that stores data in JSON format for faster retrieval of unstructured data. I personally appreciate the speed, which is significantly better for unstructured data, especially since Cosmos DB had JSON as a data type early on."
"The high speed of Azure Cosmos DB compared to other competitors is remarkable."
 

Cons

"The program is rather expensive - it depends on the size of your data."
"The cost of this product is too expensive."
"When it comes to complex queries, a user can't get any help from a drop-down box and pick columns. It would be great if some improvements could be made in the aforementioned area concerning the solution."
"Improvement should be made as per customer recommended and requirements."
"I've used Bigtable for about three or four years."
"The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The pricing of the solution needs to be improved."
"This product needs better security and transparency, and the price should be reduced."
"It would be ideal if we could integrate Cosmos DB with our Databricks. At this point, that's not possible."
"There are some disadvantages as it is costly compared to other NoSQL databases."
"I think Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can be improved by providing continuous backup for multi-region rights. I believe it's available for non-multi-region rights, but there are many features that are locked behind continuous backup that I can't use because it's not enabled yet."
"I have been a devoted Microsoft fan, but Redis DB's memory caching capabilities are really making progress. Even if Cosmos DB is continuously improving and is quite advanced in the field of internal memory optimization, I would still recommend Redis DB to a customer."
"The challenge for us is always scale."
"I don't think Cosmos DB has improved our organization. People are using it, but I'm not sure it's the best solution. For one, it's costly. Also, there are other issues with it. You cannot get all the records simultaneously. You can only get it in chunks of 1,500 maximum."
"Areas of improvement for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB include indexing. While it makes data retrieval easier, it also increases costs."
"Areas of improvement for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB include indexing. While it makes data retrieval easier, it also increases costs. If there's a better way to improve indexing at a lower cost, that would be really helpful, but that's the major point for now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like to see better pricing. It is not too expensive, but it isn't cheap either."
"We are not consuming so much yet since we are at the beginning of using this solution. I would rate the pricing of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a six out of ten."
"Cosmos DB gave us three accounts for $400. We pay according to the usage."
"When we've budgeted for our resources, it's one of the more expensive ones, but it's still not very expensive per month."
"Pricing, at times, is not super clear because they use the request unit (RU) model. To manage not just Azure Cosmos DB but what you are receiving for the dollars paid is not easy. It is very abstract. They could do a better job of connecting Azure Cosmos DB with the value or some variation of that."
"Cosmos DB's pricing structure has significantly improved in recent months, both in terms of its pricing model and how charges are calculated."
"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 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."
"The cost is the biggest limitation of this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Legal Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Google Cloud Bigtable?
One point for improvement in Google Cloud Bigtable is that people have confusion in mapping. There are many similar products available, and Google has managed services for similar products as well....
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Bigtable?
My main use case for Google Cloud Bigtable is mainly for advertisement-related analytics-related use cases.
What advice do you have for others considering Google Cloud Bigtable?
Regarding integration with Google Cloud Bigtable and other Google Cloud services such as Dataflow, Dataproc, and BigQuery, we have not done that integration, but there are connectors available. Som...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's pricing model has aligned with my budget expectations because I can tune the RU as I need to, which helps a lot. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's dynamic auto-scale or server...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I have not utilized Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB multi-model support for handling diverse data types. I'm not in the position to decide if clients will use Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB or any other datab...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
We have a very large team of developers who develop a solution for our customers. In the part where they need some infrastructure on Microsoft Azure, we deploy entire environments of different type...
 

Also Known As

Google BigTable, BigTable
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cognite, Dow Jones, Loblaw Digital
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Bigtable vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.