Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs PostgreSQL comparison

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Read 125 PostgreSQL reviews

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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

April 2025

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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

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (5th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st)

PostgreSQL

Ranking in Vector Databases

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

125

Ranking in other categories

Open Source Databases (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Vector Databases category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 3.5%. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 5.0%, up from 3.4% 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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PavithrarajShetty

Software Architect at Tetherfi

Offers simplicity and is cheaply priced

I haven't gone through the scalability aspect since I was using MySQL Server. I haven't worked to a high level in PostgreSQL, but with MySQL Server, I have managed clustering and partitioning. I think I haven't put much focus on PostgreSQL, so I am not sure how it behaves or how it works.

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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

"With Azure you can start small and grow as you need."

"It's highly scalable and supports consistency, security, and multiple security options."

"Azure Cosmos DB offers numerous data connectors that provide a platform for seamless integration with various platforms and visualization tools such as Power BI. It allows connection via multiple data connectors to integrate data in any desired format."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its real-time analytics capabilities, which allow for turnaround times in milliseconds."

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is very easy to use."

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

"Specifically, we are using the MongoDB API, so we leverage it in that way. I like the flexibility that it offers. My team does not have to spend time building out database tables. We can get going fairly quickly with being able to read and write data into a MongoDB collection that is hosted inside Azure Cosmos DB."

"Azure Cosmos DB helped improve the quality of our search results."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pros

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

"One of the most valuable features is real-time data capture; it optimizes database performance. I think using real-time data capture reduces job running time and the amount of data sent at once with batch loads."

"Postgres has some functions called JSONB aggregators or other aggregators, which are quite useful."

"PostgreSQL makes it very adaptable to several descriptions of a record. Instead of having several tables or several relations for one entity, I can adapt this entity. It can be a multiform entity. For example, here in Mexico, a company and a person can be sold to us as a physical entity or a physical person."

"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."

"This is an open-source solution, operates at a high speed, and supports more than one SQL language."

"The most valuable features are the price, stability, it is scalable and is used by our clients in small business environments, and it is a simple product to use."

"The solution is quite stable."

Cons

"Once you create a database, it calls the container, and then items show up. A better description and more guidance would help because the first time I created it, I didn't understand that a container is similar to a table in SQL."

"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."

"Cosmos DB is expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing."

"An improvement could include increasing the document size or providing a method to manage larger sets efficiently. If they want to keep a 2 MB limit, they should provide a way to chain multiple documents in a systematic way so that developers do not have to figure out what to do when a document is larger than 2 MB."

"Overall, it is a good resource. I am not aware of the background, but it seems to currently support only JSON documents."

"The challenge for us is always scale."

"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."

"One of our biggest pain points is the backup and restore functionality needs improvement. They've gotten a little better in this area. SQL Server's long-term retention is amazing, and you can restore data from years ago. You need to open a support Microsoft ticket to restore your Cosmos DB backup, and it comes in on a different Cosmos account. It's just kind of a headache to restore data."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB cons

"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."

"There are some products out there that have a slightly different method of implementation for the SQL language. Some of those are slightly better in some areas, and PostgreSQL is slightly better in some areas. I would probably like to match all of those products together. It is just down to the functionality. For example, Oracle has a number of options within SQL that are outside of what you would class as the SQL standard. PostgreSQL misses some of those, but PostgreSQL does other things that are better than what Oracle does. I would like to merge those two products so that there is a certain amount of functionality in a single product."

"We have to set up event API, which takes a lot of events from the user."

"A better graphic user-interface would be nice to see."

"The user interface could be a bit better."

"The scalability is limited."

"It would be great if the solution offered even more integration capabilities."

"It needs more integration."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cosmos DB's pricing structure has significantly improved in recent months, both in terms of its pricing model and how charges are calculated."

"The pricing and licensing model was initially difficult to understand, but as soon as I learned what was going on and how it was priced, it was pretty easy."

"If you are a small organization or startup building from scratch without the Microsoft Startup Founder Club support, it could be expensive."

"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."

"It is cost-efficient as long as you understand the right setup to optimize usage. Knowing the data needs of the organization and adjusting the Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB usage accordingly helps save costs, but if you don't know, you could end up spending more than necessary."

"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."

"Cosmos DB is cost-effective when starting but requires careful management."

"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."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing and cost advice

"Affordable solution."

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

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

"PostgreSQL is a free and open-source database."

"The community version of Postgre is basically free."

"The licensing model is good."

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

"It is open-source. If you use it on-premise, it is free. It also has enterprise or commercial versions. If you go for the cloud version, there will be a cost, but it is lower than Oracle or Microsoft."

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Legal Firm

13%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

15%

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?

It is cost-efficient as long as you understand the right setup to optimize usage. Knowing the data needs of the organization and adjusting the Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB usage accordingly helps save...

What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

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. Aside from the ...

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

May 2025

Download Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB product report

Download PostgreSQL product report

May 2025

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB

No data available

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.

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