Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs TiDB Cloud comparison

Microsoft and PingCAP are both solutions in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while PingCAP is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 3.4% mindshare in DS, compared to PingCAP’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of PingCAP users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

Read 103 Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB reviews

7,774 Views
855 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

TiDB Cloud

Read 2 TiDB Cloud reviews

407 Views
8 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

TiDB Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and TiDB Cloud based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Database as a Service (DBaaS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. TiDB Cloud Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. TiDB Cloud

September 2025

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Helped 869,566 peers since 2012

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)

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

103

Ranking in other categories

NoSQL Databases (2nd), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (1st)

TiDB Cloud

Ranking in Database as a Service (DBaaS)

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Database as a Service (DBaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 3.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TiDB Cloud is 0.1%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database as a Service (DBaaS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB	3.4%
TiDB Cloud	0.1%
Other	96.5%

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

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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Zaid Shaikh

Software Engineer at Hinge Health

Helps to collect and analyze metrics and is useful for monitoring user engagement

If you are using a product managed by a cloud provider, such as AWS or Google Cloud, you benefit from various management tools. For instance, AWS offers CloudWatch for tracking metrics, while Google Cloud provides Time Series Insights. These tools are managed by the cloud providers. As an end user, you primarily need to pay for the service, and the cloud provider handles most of the management tasks. If you choose to use open-source tools like Prometheus, you will need to manage them yourself. It's a trade-off between convenience and cost. Opting for a managed service means you pay more but have less management overhead. On the other hand, using open-source solutions can reduce costs but requires you to handle the entire management of the infrastructure and database, such as ensuring uptime and provisioning resources. TiDB Cloud offers a reliable, managed solution that ensures availability and performance without the hassle of self-management.

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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

"The speed is impressive, and integrating our power-up database with Kafka was an improvement."

"I like the scalability. There aren't any constraints for posting in the geolocation. I also like the SQL architecture."

"In Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, one valuable feature is its ability to store data in multiple regions. If one region fails, it automatically switches to a healthy region, ensuring minimal latency and disaster recovery without impacting data latency in applications."

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a good solution for distributed application requirements. We can perform multi-modeling."

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

"For modern applications, I would recommend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB."

"Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB helped improve our organization's search result quality significantly when we started using it about eight years ago."

"For example, we have people spread across multiple locations; if they update data in Australia, we can access it in another location within a fraction of a second."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pros

"TiDB selections are fast, and it handles collections and solutions well. Vertical and horizontal scaling are also good features."

"TiDB Cloud has a broader scope that offers multiple services. It can be compared to major cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and GCP."

Cons

"The cost is a concern. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB did not decrease our total cost of ownership. From the standpoint of the old way of doing DBA operations, it did, but our cloud cost increased significantly."

"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."

"If you want to bring the data from AWS, you must pay data egress costs. That's a pain point."

"The only area Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can improve on is its documentation; while it is solid and very useful, enhancements in the indexing documentation would help users save costs and make it more cost-effective."

"The model with autoscaling for RU is complicated to optimize RU consumption."

"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."

"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."

"It would be nice to have more options to ingest the data, for example, more file options or more search options. Currently, you can use JSON, but if there were other file types you can use for data ingestion, that would be nice."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB cons

"If you are using a product managed by a cloud provider, such as AWS or Google Cloud, you benefit from various management tools."

"There should be the ability to replicate auto-increment sequences from the production environment to the disaster recovery environment."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft provides fair pricing."

"Pricing is one of the solution's main features because it is based on usage, scales automatically, and is not too costly."

"The Cosmos DB pricing model, initially quite complicated, became clear after consulting with Azure Advisor, allowing us to proceed with confidence."

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

"Pricing is mid- to high-end."

"The pricing for Cosmos DB has improved, particularly with the new pricing for Autoscale."

"I would rate Cosmos DB's cost at seven out of ten, with ten being the highest."

"Azure is a pay as you go subscription."

More Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Legal Firm

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	55

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

The pricing for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is good, but there is a developer factor to consider. It could be economical or expensive depending on usage. Guidance about query consumption of Request U...

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What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?

In terms of improvement for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, while it eliminates the burden of managing database infrastructure, we realized it might not be possible to use various models simultaneously ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TiDB Cloud?

It's open source.

See all answers

What needs improvement with TiDB Cloud?

While using TiDB Cloud, I noticed things I don't like as a developer. For instance, it doesn't support functions and procedures, which Oracle and other databases do. This means that for table-to-ta...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for TiDB Cloud?

Silverlake Axis has a core banking and loan product called SILK, used by most banks in Southeast Asia, like in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. The new product I'm working on, Mobius, is a replac...

See all answers

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Compared 80% of the time

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Compared 20% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB

September 2025

Download Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB product report

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

September 2025

Download TiDB Cloud product report

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

Unleash the power of AI-generated SQL and Serverless HTAP in a single cloud-native database. Experience real-time analytics and elastic scaling, all in a fully managed service.
Elastically and transparently scale to hundreds of nodes for critical workloads without changing business logic.
Use what you know about SQL – maintain your relational model and global ACID transactions while coping with your hybrid workloads at ease.
Equipped with built-in high performance analytics engine to analyze operational data without using an ETL.

PingCAP

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. TiDB Cloud

September 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. TiDB Cloud

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