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Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs Rockset 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

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Vector Databases
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (6th), NoSQL Databases (3rd), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st)
Rockset
Ranking in Vector Databases
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
AWS Marketplace (41st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Vector Databases category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 3.0%. The mindshare of Rockset is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vector Databases
 

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.
Raghavendra Sao - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to get data from the database faster
Rockset is an easy tool, and anyone can use it. The solution provides some type of data grouping. This grouping of data based on some parameters is not simple, but it is very useful. I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is easy to use and implement for application programmers."
"rate Azure support nine out of 10. They respond quickly and will help you manage costs. However, they mainly give you an overview of the issue, so they'll never have an in-depth idea of what you're doing. They aren't the owners of our product, so they don't know much about it, but they can ask you generally: What are you doing? Are you doing too many updates? How can we reduce the cost?"
"The global synchronization feature of Azure Cosmos DB stands out as the most valuable for me."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB simplifies the process of saving and retrieving data."
"The connectors, such as the MongoDB connector and the integration with SQL, are incredibly valuable."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is very fast. Data retrieval and data storage are very quick."
"The latency and availability of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are fantastic."
"The features most valuable to us in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are the auto scale and change feed. These features allow us to do some operations that are not possible with SQL Server."
"The initial setup was very simple."
"Rockset is very fast, and you can query just like in MySQL."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of stability."
"The challenge for us is always scale."
"It would be beneficial if Cosmos supported batch and real-time use cases to make the system more seamless."
"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."
"We expect Cosmos DB to lead on that. There is potential for improved security features, which is important for data storage, especially for Dell Technologies."
"The initial setup was difficult."
"It's still new, and good training resources are harder to find. Even the most recent books on Cosmos DB are several years old, which is ancient in IT terms."
"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."
"Rockset is now bought by OpenAI. It’s uncertain if Rockset will continue to exist as it is."
"Filtering the database based on indexes is difficult in Rockset and should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing for Cosmos DB has improved, particularly with the new pricing for Autoscale."
"The solution is very expensive."
"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."
"I would rate Cosmos DB's cost at seven out of ten, with ten being the highest."
"Pricing is one of the solution's main features because it is based on usage, scales automatically, and is not too costly."
"With heavy use, like a large-scale IoT implementation, you could easily hit a quarter of a million dollars a month in Azure charges if Cosmos DB is a big part of it."
"Its pricing structure is quite flexible."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Legal Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
What needs improvement with Rockset?
For our use, there is no room for improvement. It depends on how you use it, however, from our perspective, it has met our needs.
What is your primary use case for Rockset?
We used Rockset as an SQL interface on some of DynamoDB. Our use case is primarily for customer-facing data reporting.
What advice do you have for others considering Rockset?
Rockset is now bought by OpenAI. It’s uncertain if Rockset will continue to exist as it is. OpenAI may have its own agenda for it. They have started canceling some contracts with customers, so this...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
1. Adobe 2. Cisco 3. Comcast 4. DoorDash 5. Expedia 6. Facebook 7. GitHub 8. IBM 9. Lyft 10. Microsoft 11. Netflix 12. Oracle 13. Pinterest 14. Reddit 15. Salesforce 16. Slack 17. Spotify 18. Square 19. Target 20. Twitter 21. Uber 22. Verizon 23. Visa 24. Walmart 25. Yelp 26. Zoom 27. Airbnb 28. Dropbox 29. eBay 30. Google 31. LinkedIn 32. Amazon
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Rockset and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.