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Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs MongoDB Atlas comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 2, 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
6.3
Azure Cosmos DB offers cost savings and performance benefits, but high initial costs and complexity may challenge smaller businesses.
Sentiment score
8.0
Users achieved strong ROI from MongoDB Atlas through cost savings, fast performance, and efficient cloud-based data management despite high support costs.
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
6.7
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB support is highly rated for responsiveness and expertise, though initial contact may be cumbersome.
Sentiment score
7.0
MongoDB Atlas customer service is praised for knowledgeable premium support, with faster responses in higher-tier plans despite some cost concerns.
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.
I have used them sometimes, even recently, and found the feedback to be spot on our needs.
The features of MongoDB Atlas fall short, resulting in an average rating due to higher-expectation features still lacking in its offerings.
For premium support, I would rate the support of MongoDB Atlas a nine.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Azure Cosmos DB offers scalable, cost-efficient cloud database services, ideal for large enterprises due to its dynamic scaling capabilities.
Sentiment score
7.6
MongoDB Atlas effectively scales from gigabytes to terabytes, handling thousands of users, though shard management can be challenging.
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.
It's very much scalable, and I would rate scalability a nine.
MongoDB Atlas offers sharding as a scalability feature, although it does not perform as well as Oracle.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is highly reliable and available, despite occasional configuration challenges and regional outage issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
MongoDB Atlas is highly reliable, efficiently handling workloads with automatic updates, despite minor interface issues, and is user-trusted.
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.
When it comes to OLTP transactions, its performance declines.
The stability of the product is very high.
 

Room For Improvement

Enhancing Azure Cosmos DB requires better API integration, query flexibility, documentation, enterprise support, and handling large datasets efficiently.
MongoDB Atlas users seek UI improvements, cost reduction, better integration, scalability, and enhanced security, training, APIs, and support.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
You have to monitor the Request Units.
The dashboard could include more detailed RU descriptions, IOPS, and compute metrics.
Enhancing capabilities for data pipelines and visualization dashboards.
MongoDB Atlas should support containerization.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers scalable, usage-based pricing, with varying costs based on demand and complex setups requiring careful planning.
Enterprise buyers find MongoDB Atlas pricing acceptable, yet opinions on cost-effectiveness differ; the free tier enhances its appeal.
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.
For our service, it was around 300 to 600 euros per month, which was acceptable for our customers.
The price of MongoDB Atlas is reasonable, which is why many organizations, including mine, are opting for it.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Cosmos DB offers scalability, seamless integration, fast data retrieval, and robust API support, ideal for modern applications.
MongoDB Atlas offers speed, flexibility, easy scalability, and advanced features for efficient data management, enhancing performance and reducing costs.
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.
I find MongoDB Atlas highly scalable and easy to use, with very good support.
It is particularly useful for unstructured and semi-structured data because of its performance in these areas.
The most valuable features of MongoDB Atlas in handling large data volumes include collection size and its NoSQL database capabilities.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
6th
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
NoSQL Databases (5th), Vector Databases (1st)
MongoDB Atlas
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
3rd
Ranking in Managed NoSQL Databases
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
AWS Marketplace (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 2.4%. The mindshare of MongoDB Atlas is 13.3%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Laksiri Bala - PeerSpot reviewer
Room for improvement in data handling leads to enhanced cost-effective data management performance
It would be beneficial if MongoDB Atlas could better support OLTP aspects and data frames, as well as enhance its capabilities for data pipelines and visualization dashboards. Furthermore, supporting the medallion architecture could be a valuable addition, and incorporating improved spatial and vector handling for geographical data could make it more competitive. Enhancing vector processing for AI capabilities would also be critical.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Legal Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Pricing is a complex process at the enterprise level. While I'm not handling the pricing directly, through stakeholder meetings and conversations, we understood that having everything in a single p...
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...
What do you like most about MongoDB Atlas?
There are many valuable features, but scalability stands out. It can scale across zones. You can define multiple nodes. They have also partnered with AWS, offering great service with multiple featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MongoDB Atlas?
The price of MongoDB Atlas is reasonable, which is why many organizations, including mine, are opting for it.
What needs improvement with MongoDB Atlas?
There is nothing about MongoDB Atlas I would like to improve or any weak points at this time. I have not thought through what other features I would like to see included in future updates. MongoDB ...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
Atlas, MongoDB Atlas (pay-as-you-go)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Wells Fargo, Forbes, Ulta Beauty, Bosch, Sanoma, Current (a Digital Bank), ASAP Log, SBB, Zebra Technologies, Radial, Kovai, Eni, Accuhit, Cognigy, and Payload.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. MongoDB Atlas and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
862,624 professionals have used our research since 2012.