Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs PostgreSQL comparison

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

PostgreSQL and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are both key players in the database solutions market, each offering distinct benefits and challenges. PostgreSQL is noted for its cost-effectiveness and comprehensive features, while Cosmos DB excels in scalability and NoSQL support, albeit at a higher price.

Features: PostgreSQL boasts strong support for SQL standards, asynchronous commit, and ACID compliance. Its powerful indexing and wide programming language support enhance its performance, particularly in data-heavy tasks and intricate queries. On the other hand, Azure Cosmos DB is praised for its high scalability, multi-model database support, low-latency access, and integration with various APIs. It is valued for its data handling versatility and seamless Azure services integration.

Room for Improvement: PostgreSQL faces difficulties with large-scale operations, challenges in handling read-only and COUNT(*) queries, and a complex setup process. Improvements could be made in partitioning and replication. Azure Cosmos DB is hindered by its high cost and intricate pricing structure. Users also seek better analytics capabilities and support for complex queries and integrations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PostgreSQL is frequently deployed in on-premises or hybrid cloud environments, offering flexibility but often requiring significant expertise due to limited centralized customer support. Community support is robust, with active forums and extensive online resources. Azure Cosmos DB, designed for public cloud deployment, offers more streamlined setup and management but at higher costs. While Microsoft provides extensive support, its proprietary nature may pose interoperability challenges compared to open-source options.

Pricing and ROI: PostgreSQL is a cost-efficient solution, offering no licensing fees and promoting high ROI via its open-source model. It provides businesses with a powerful database solution with minimal financial investment. Conversely, Azure Cosmos DB requires careful management of its consumption-based pricing model. Though it offers significant features, its high operational costs are justifiable in large-scale operations where its performance and scalability benefits outweigh the expense.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. PostgreSQL Report (Updated: April 2025).

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. PostgreSQL

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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

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Ranking in Vector Databases

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st)

PostgreSQL

Ranking in Vector Databases

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

125

Ranking in other categories

Open Source Databases (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Vector Databases category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 3.0%. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 4.9%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vector Databases

Featured Reviews

MichaelJohn

Director | Data & AI at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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.

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AdityaSharma3

Vice President Business at Techmagnate: Digital Marketing Agency

Transaction processes are fast and good replication capability

Use cases include querying data warehouses and databases to fetch data for clients already working on PostgreSQL. We also use Postgres for building reports It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping. The query speed is fast, and the…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the way you can create and delete records. You pass a JSON, and then it creates a record."

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's most valuable feature is latency."

"We have both our SaaS app and the analytical side running without throttling issues."

"The best feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is API access, which makes it very easy to interact with the database without needing to write queries."

"The searching capability is exceptional. It is very simple and incomparable to competitors."

"Azure Cosmos DB offers efficient indexing and low search latency, making searching fast and efficient and ensuring peace of mind in database operations."

"It is non-SQL and helps to manage and manipulate data from the coding, rather than direct data and complex queries."

"Cosmos DB has helped us by providing faster response times for everything, which significantly improved our search results quality."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pros

"The product's deployment is easy."

"We are able to create many different types of jobs and items with this solution making it one of the most valuable features."

"PostgreSQL is very easy to use. I have experience in Oracle SQL and PostgreSQL uses the same syntax which makes it is easy for me to develop."

"It is easy to use."

"It is very simple to manage."

"The product is quite flexible."

"The solution provides complete support in terms of the SQL dialect and behaves nicely when it comes to transactions."

"The product is easy to use and works fast for relational databases."

Cons

"We would like to see advancements in AI with the ability to benchmark vector search capabilities, ensuring it answers questions accurately. During our initial implementation, we faced challenges with indexing and sorting, which are natively available in other offerings but required specific configurations in Cosmos."

"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."

"The UI needs enhancement. Unlike SQL, Cosmos DB's UI is not as straightforward, making it a bit challenging to use efficiently."

"The main area of improvement is the cost, as the expense is high. Also, when writing processes into Cosmos, sometimes the threshold is met, which can be a problem if developers have not written the code properly, limiting calls to five thousand. These aspects need addressing."

"I would give a low rating to Microsoft support, as whenever I talked to them, I never got a solution. I had to guide them."

"One area of improvement for Cosmos database is the auto-scaling of RUs during high loads. It would be beneficial if the database could automatically scale resources rather than requiring manual adjustments."

"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."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB cons

"The user interface could be a bit better."

"I'm not really able to customize it."

"It needs more integration."

"The scalability is limited."

"I had some issues when I integrated with the Jupyter Notebook."

"It still needs to be more mature and have some backup feature. We are normally dealing with Oracle's data, and we have very strong online tools to back up the data and do other things. PostgreSQL still needs to do more in this area as well as in the high availability area. There are many external tools that you can use for PostgreSQL's high availability, but there is no embedded tool within PostgreSQL for high availability. It could have a feature similar to Oracle for working on a distributed system. It can have some scripts to improve the monitoring and some tools to do performance analysis. We have a workaround for most of such requirements except for the support for a distributed system, which is very difficult to have. This area should be included in the core of the database itself."

"It could be improved by using parallelization. You want basically, distributed computing."

"They need to have a better graphical interface. There is a tool called pgAdmin 4 that they use, which is free. It is written in Java, and it is slow. They need to have a better product that is similar to Toad for Oracle, but, of course, it is hard to get something that's really great and free. Other than that, it is great."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost isn’t a big hurdle for us right now. The solution is not 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."

"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."

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is moderately priced, where it is neither expensive nor cheap."

"Cosmos DB gave us three accounts for $400. We pay according to the usage."

"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."

"Our experience with the pricing and setup cost is that it aligns with what we expect based on the pricing we see. However, I would absolutely like it to be less if possible."

"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."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing and cost advice

"It is free. There is no license on it."

"The tool is cheaply priced compared to other RDBMS providers in the market."

"We are using the free version of PostgreSQL."

"It is free, but if you need support, you can go for the commercial version called EnterpriseDB. They provide paid support, and they can even do hosting for you if you want standby and support."

"It is an open-source platform."

"It is also open-source so it is free."

"Affordable solution."

"The need for our customers to pay for licences is contingent on their projects and budgets."

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Legal Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

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?

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...

How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...

What do you like most about PostgreSQL?

It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?

The tool is free of cost. For now, it's not about making money. But once we perfect it, we can offer it to customers willing to pay for support and other services. Most of my deployments are free.

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Product Reports

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Download Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB product report

Download PostgreSQL product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB

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Overview

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database service providing scalability, user-friendliness, and seamless integration, suitable for managing large volumes of structured and unstructured data across diverse applications.

Azure Cosmos DB is renowned for its scalability, stability, and ease of integration, offering robust support for multiple data models and APIs. Its capacity for handling unstructured data efficiently and providing real-time analytics makes it ideal for applications requiring high performance and global distribution. With features like automatic failover and integration with Microsoft products, users benefit from cost optimization and secure data handling. Enhancement opportunities include simplifying queries, improving documentation, and expanding backup and analytics functionalities.

What are the most important features of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

Scalability and Autoscaling: Efficiently handles growing data and user demands.
Multi-Model Support: Adapts to different data models seamlessly.
Global Distribution: Provides low-latency access across multiple regions.
Automatic Failover: Ensures high availability and reliability.
Integration with Microsoft Products: Offers seamless connectivity with Azure services.

What benefits should users look for in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reviews?

Performance and Speed: Exceptionally fast processing for real-time data analytics.
Cost Optimization: Tools for managing expenses effectively.
Secure Data Handling: Implements strong data security measures.
Flexible Data Ingestion: Supports diverse data ingestion methods.

Azure Cosmos DB is frequently used in sectors like web, mobile, IoT, and analytics. It supports applications as a key-value store, processes real-time data, and enables global scalability with low-latency access. Its big data management capabilities and integration with Azure services enhance its utility across industries.

Microsoft

PostgreSQL is a versatile and reliable database management system commonly used for web development, data analysis, and building scalable databases.

It offers advanced features like indexing, replication, and transaction management. Users appreciate its flexibility, performance, and ability to handle large amounts of data efficiently. Its robustness, scalability, and support for complex queries make it highly valuable.

Additionally, PostgreSQL's extensibility, flexibility, community support, and frequent updates contribute to its ongoing improvement and stability.

Sample Customers

TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify

1. Apple 2. Cisco 3. Fujitsu 4. Instagram 5. Netflix 6. Red Hat 7. Sony 8. Uber 9. Cisco Systems 10. Skype 11. LinkedIn 12. Etsy 13. Yelp 14. Reddit 15. Dropbox 16. Slack 17. Twitch 18. WhatsApp 19. Snapchat 20. Shazam 21. SoundCloud 22. The New York Times 23. Cisco WebEx 24. Atlassian 25. Cisco Meraki 26. Heroku 27. GitLab 28. Zalando 29. OpenTable 30. Trello 31. Square Enix 32. Bloomberg

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. PostgreSQL