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Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs SAP HANA Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
NoSQL Databases (1st), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (1st)
SAP HANA Cloud
Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
3.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 4.9%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP HANA Cloud is 1.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database as a Service (DBaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB4.9%
SAP HANA Cloud1.8%
Other93.3%
Database as a Service (DBaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Bassem Mohammed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Application Manager at TBTD
Has improved performance by enabling smoother business operations and real-time data integration
I am satisfied with SAP HANA Cloud and don't see any room for improvement. I don't use SAP HANA Cloud's machine learning feature at this moment. Currently, we don't use SAP HANA Cloud's ability to support hybrid data landscapes in our organization. SAP HANA Cloud can integrate real-time analytics with transactional data processing in my businesses by connecting it with other systems such as government systems and HR systems for fingerprint recognition. We are already using BOBJ or SAP BW for predictive analytics, which is an old solution from SAP. My overall rating for SAP HANA Cloud is eight out of 10. The reason I don't give it a higher score is that there are some concerns related to security and certain features that I have not seen yet.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's enhanced performance is its most valuable aspect."
"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is easy to use and implement for application programmers."
"The benefits of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB were immediate for us."
"Change feed is a pretty amazing feature. Once you make the changes, they are quickly read for you, and then you also have geo-replication. You can do a lot of things in your region, and the same regions can be replicated all over the world."
"Latency and availability are incredible."
"For modern applications, I would recommend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."
"Cosmos is preferred because of its speed, robustness, and utilization. We have all the merchandising information in Cosmos DB, which provides concrete and optimized data when searching for new products on the site. It is faster than other relational databases."
"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?"
"Using SAP HANA Cloud, we can replicate the data into HANA and use live data, which improves our business decision-making."
"From my perspective, the best features of SAP HANA Cloud are that it's an ERP system connecting all departments together, making it a very smooth software for business operations."
"SAP HANA Cloud provides a single version of truth, automation, intelligence, process control, and best practices."
"The solution has integrated many different value chains across the organization, as previously there were multiple systems managing those value chains."
"The real-time analytics feature is good; there is no doubt about it."
"I would rate SAP HANA Cloud nine to ten out of ten."
"The best features of SAP HANA Cloud are that its software is effective because it has tight integration between other functions, such as finance, materials, and sales."
 

Cons

"It is easy to use, but optimization has been a mixed experience. It has been more of trying to figure out how to do so. We have not found much support there, so we have to come up with our own way of optimizing it in different ways. That is one area of improvement."
"There aren't any specific areas that need improvement, but if there were a way to achieve the right cosine similarity score without extensive testing, that would be very beneficial."
"A couple features that would help me in architectural solutions would be customizable architecture or customizable documentation, which both Microsoft Azure or Microsoft Teams can provide."
"The biggest problem is the learning curve and other database services like RDS."
"There are multiple approaches to implementing multitenant architecture on Azure Cosmos DB, but there is still no single or best-recommended approach when you have a big variance in the size of your tenants. That is something that still needs to be worked on."
"The query is a little complex. SQL server should have more options. But the query should be better."
"Cosmos DB is expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing."
"Cosmos should be cheaper. We actually intend to stop using it in the near future because the price is too high — and because of the stability issues."
"The technical support from SAP is inadequate. We don't get timely responses, with support tickets taking more than 25 days to process."
"My opinion on SAP HANA Cloud is that it is a waste of time."
"From a UX point of view, there could be better improvements in the user experience and how users interact with the system."
"In future updates of SAP HANA Cloud, I would suggest some changes in the user interfaces to make it more user-friendly."
"SAP HANA Cloud requires extensive documentation before connecting with a human being to troubleshoot an issue."
"I see some weaknesses in SAP HANA Cloud regarding innovations, as they take their own time compared to what the market brings in with new features."
"Regarding SAP HANA Cloud, one significant pain point is the lack of access to the database from the HANA Studio for developers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This cost model is beneficial because it allows for cost control by limiting resource units (RUs), which is ideal. However, for our needs, we can't engage with their minimum pricing, which ranges from 100 to 1,000 RUs. At the bare minimum, we need to use 4,000 RUs for a customer. I would like to find a way to gain some advantages from the lowest tier, particularly the ability to scale down if necessary. It would be helpful to have more flexibility in cost management at the lower end."
"It's expensive. I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing."
"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."
"From a startup point of view, it appears to be expensive. If I were to create my startup, it would not have the pricing appeal compared to the competition, such as Supabase. All those other databases are well-advertised by communities. I know there is a free tier with Azure Cosmos DB. It is just not well advertised."
"The customer had a high budget, but it turned out to be a little bit cheaper than what they expected. I am not sure how much they have spent so far, but they are satisfied with the pricing."
"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."
"When we've budgeted for our resources, it's one of the more expensive ones, but it's still not very expensive per month."
"Its pricing structure is quite flexible."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Legal Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise58
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's pricing model has aligned with my budget expectations because I can tune the RU as I need to, which helps a lot. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's dynamic auto-scale or server...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I have not utilized Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB multi-model support for handling diverse data types. I'm not in the position to decide if clients will use Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB or any other datab...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
We have a very large team of developers who develop a solution for our customers. In the part where they need some infrastructure on Microsoft Azure, we deploy entire environments of different type...
What needs improvement with SAP HANA Cloud?
In future updates of SAP HANA Cloud, I would suggest some changes in the user interfaces to make it more user-friendly.
What is your primary use case for SAP HANA Cloud?
SAP HANA Cloud is used in many different organizations such as retail, manufacturing, and pharmacy; most businesses can use SAP HANA Cloud.
What advice do you have for others considering SAP HANA Cloud?
I am satisfied with SAP HANA Cloud and don't see any room for improvement. I don't use SAP HANA Cloud's machine learning feature at this moment. Currently, we don't use SAP HANA Cloud's ability to ...
 

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
Information Not Available
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