No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Google Cloud Bigtable vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 (4th)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (3rd), NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Managed NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Bigtable is 5.7%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 14.9%, down from 16.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed NoSQL Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB14.9%
Google Cloud Bigtable5.7%
Other79.4%
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.
Michael Hasenfang - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Platform Engineering - Infrastructure Systems and Automation at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Collecting compliance data has become more efficient while managing unstructured inputs for reporting
The features that I find most valuable within Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are probably the cost, as the cost optimization is good. The storage and queryability are good for what we're doing; it's a lot of unstructured data, so having a platform to put that in and then be able to harvest that data out for the reporting we do is essential. In terms of cost saving, it was probably easily 30 to 40% cheaper than doing a standard SQL, which is what we saw just on piloting and getting in there. We were initially thinking 20 to 25%, but we were probably more at the 35 to 40%. We are using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's hybrid search today. The value that it has added to my AI or search workloads is that I think it's optimized that process and made it easier. We have a lot of unstructured data coming from different dissimilar systems and different data sources, so correlating those things together and making sense of it has been very beneficial. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB has had pretty good performance with searching through large amounts of data; it's been fast, and we haven't seen a lot of performance degradation while building larger queries and bringing in a large set of data. The dynamic auto-scale or serverless model from Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB has helped reduce costs and operational effort; however, it's hard to quantify how that plays out since you're using a shared service. It shifts my focus away from building, managing, and upgrading to adding value.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I like the drive and the support of this program."
"The most valuable feature is the backup and replication service."
"This solution is much more scalable than more traditional databases - at least the ones we are aware of."
"The solution is very stable; we've never experienced bugs or glitches, we haven't had crashes, and it works well and as expected 100% of the time."
"Stability-wise, it is a simple solution. I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"The main benefit I receive from Google Cloud Bigtable is the managed service part."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is fast, and its performance is good compared to normal SQL DB."
"Their new feature, dynamic data masking, is very cool and useful for us."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a Microsoft solution specifically, but we can develop with different developer kits for different databases."
"It works reasonably fast. You can retain the original format of the document as received by the third-party system."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's dynamic auto-scale and serverless model have helped reduce costs and operational efforts for our organization."
"Since it's a managed service, Azure backend handles scalability. From a user's perspective, we don't need to worry about scalability."
"I appreciate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's robust document management and consistent availability."
"I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability."
 

Cons

"The program is rather expensive - it depends on the size of your data."
"This product needs better security and transparency, and the price should be reduced."
"I've used Bigtable for about three or four years."
"Pricing-wise, I find GCP can be a little costly, so I would rate it a 3.5."
"It would be nice if the pay-as-you-go license were a little cheaper."
"Improvement should be made as per customer recommended and requirements."
"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."
"It doesn't support all databases."
"The customer service is lacking. We have a premier support agreement, but support is hit and miss."
"Overall, it works very well and fits the purpose regardless of the target application. However, by default, there is a threshold to accommodate bulk or large requests. You have to monitor the Request Units. If you need more data for a particular query, you need to increase the Request Units."
"I hope they improve the service. Before last year, improvements on Cosmos DB were very slow."
"A minor improvement would be enabling batch operations through the UI. Currently, to delete all documents in a collection, we must use an API, which some of my team finds inconvenient for admin tasks."
"From about half a billion rows, we're returning maybe 20,000 in two or three minutes. We don't know why, but we are working with Microsoft and a third party to figure that out."
"We should have more freedom to tweak it and make our own queries for non-traditional use-cases."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like to see better pricing. It is not too expensive, but it isn't cheap either."
"Microsoft provides fair pricing."
"I would rate Cosmos DB's cost at seven out of ten, with ten being the highest."
"The price of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB could be a bit lower."
"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."
"Azure Cosmos DB's pricing is competitive, though there is a need for more personalized pricing models to accommodate small applications without incurring high charges. A suggestion is to implement dynamically adjustable pricing that accounts for various user needs."
"Its pricing is higher compared to solutions like Aerospike. However, it is justified because of the out-of-the-box features that are provided. The availability and resiliency that we have make it worth the price."
"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."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing is based on RUs. Reading 1 KB document costs one RU, whereas writing one document costs five RUs. Pricing for querying depends on the complexity of the query. If you increase the document size, it will automatically increase the RU cost."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed NoSQL Databases solutions are best for your needs.
912,930 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Legal Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise25
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?
I have knowledge about the pricing, setup cost, and licensing aspect of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I would see improvements in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, particularly concerning integration with more tiers. They should integrate products like IBM Watson for analytics and offer more options for e...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I have worked with databases like Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, and PostgreSQL. We had a migration where our customer wanted solutions like Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, where they desired high avail...
 

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: August 2026.
912,930 professionals have used our research since 2012.