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Google Cloud Bigtable 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

Google Cloud Bigtable
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (5th), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Bigtable is 5.7%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 16.1%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Aakash Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Great for streaming data and being a managed service is an advantage
Our primary use case is for analytics, analyzing the data sets and curing Bigtable is very user-friendly where streaming data is required. I think it's relatively easier to use than Ascentra. The fact that it's a managed service is an advantage.   The cost of this product is too expensive.…
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 most valuable feature is the backup and replication service."
"Stability-wise, it is a simple solution. I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"It's very user-friendly where streaming data is required."
"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."
"The solution is very convenient."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The main benefit I receive from Google Cloud Bigtable is the managed service part."
"The main benefit I receive from Google Cloud Bigtable is the managed service part."
"It is easy to use because you don't need to know much about Cosmos DB or have prior experience."
"The standout features are its ability to do data compression easily and the ability to scale horizontally."
"I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a ten out of ten."
"We love the ability to land data with Cosmos DB easily. Cosmos is native to Azure, so everything works seamlessly with it. You need good data to have good AI, and Cosmos makes it easy to land the data."
"The product has a lot of useful features that are there and ready to use, it's also very easy to use."
"The best feature is the velocity to make a query."
"For example, we have people spread across multiple locations; if they update data in Australia, we can access it in another location within a fraction of a second."
"The best feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is the replication all over the world."
 

Cons

"I've used Bigtable for about three or four years."
"Improvement should be made as per customer recommended and requirements."
"The cost of this product is too expensive."
"The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"This product needs better security and transparency, and the price should be reduced."
"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."
"In that scenario, two things can be improved."
"It would be nice to have more options to ingest the data, for example, more file options or more search options. Currently, you can use JSON, but if there were other file types you can use for data ingestion, that would be nice."
"It doesn't support all databases."
"Better documentation on how to integrate with other components would be helpful because I was struggling with this."
"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."
"There are no particular factors that need improvement. There is a little bit of a learning curve with scaling workloads, but it works smoothly."
"What is missing in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is definitely cold storage. We know it's coming, but that's currently what is missing—the possibility to park older data in a cold tier."
"They can implement a better backup system or alert system on Microsoft's end. We do receive notices for regular maintenance or updates, but sudden issues create significant problems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is very expensive."
"It seems to have helped significantly. We were using a different database system previously, and one of the reasons for acquiring Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB was cost."
"Everything could always be cheaper. I like that Cosmos DB allows us to auto-scale instead of pre-provisioning a certain capacity. It automatically scales to the demand, so we only pay for what we consume."
"Cosmos should be cheaper. We actually intend to stop using it in the near future because the price is too high."
"For the cloud, we don't pay for the license, but for the on-prem versions, we do pay."
"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."
"The pricing model of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a bit complex."
"If you are a small organization or startup building from scratch without the Microsoft Startup Founder Club support, it could be expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Legal Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud Bigtable?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Bigtable?
The lagging problem of the product I face is an area of concern where improvements are required. In general, the performance of the product needs improvement.
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Bigtable?
When a client gives our organization a project where they need a dashboard for their company, they provide us with some data from their database, which is usually presented in Google Cloud Bigtable...
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?
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.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
In Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, I would suggest improvements in security. If anyone who has the endpoint and has access to infrastructure can potentially affect your DB. Instead of relying on a singl...
 

Also Known As

No data available
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: June 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.