Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Cosmos DB
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft's Big Data analysis platform. It is a NoSQL database service and is a replacement for the earlier DocumentDB NoSQL database.N/A
Microsoft Access
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.
$139.99
per PC
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
Azure Cosmos DBMicrosoft AccessAzure SQL Database
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Microsoft Access
$139.99
per PC
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Cosmos DBMicrosoft AccessAzure SQL Database
Free Trial
NoNoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure Cosmos DBMicrosoft AccessAzure SQL Database
Considered Multiple Products
Azure Cosmos DB
Chose Azure Cosmos DB
Because we often use Microsoft products for large corporate projects and other customer projects, and compatibility and integration are important to us, we used this platform, which in addition to very high security, has a very good response speed, also, building modern …
Chose Azure Cosmos DB
Our development and administration teams are just more familiar with the Microsoft Stack, and there was very little additional knowledge required to put this into production.
Chose Azure Cosmos DB
Cosmos DB is unique in the industry as a true multi-model, cloud-native database engine that comes with solutions for geo-redundancy, multi-master writes, (globally!) low latency, and cost-effective hosting built in. I've yet to see anything else that even comes close to the …
Microsoft Access
Chose Microsoft Access

With [Microsoft] Access I am able to quickly create simple database driven solutions with built in UI and reporting in one tool. Advanced coding is not necessary and the tool guides you through building out. Opponents for a robust, end-to/end product.

Chose Microsoft Access
SharePoint is good for simple data structures, use of workflow, integration with AD, etc. But SharePoint does not support fully relational data or complex reporting, whereas Access absolutely does.
Chose Microsoft Access
Tableau is not even a 'switch-out' tool, it's for visualization so it's not a fair comparison. Against other databasing tools, MySQL is still my favorite may be simply due to being a creature of comfort because that's where I first learned to manage DB. However, Microsoft …
Azure SQL Database
Chose Azure SQL Database
I selected Azure SQL because it integrates nicely with the technology stacks we currently maintain. The pricing is right, and clients are happy with that. Scaling is easy. Most of our clients don't want to maintain a full-blown database server, and they don't need one. For …
Chose Azure SQL Database
Amazon's RDS offering is actually very good and is used in other parts of the company, we just have a lot of Azure experience so wanted to leverage that.
Chose Azure SQL Database
The simplicity and great features and good support of Microsoft as well as the more reasonable flexible price than other competitors is one of the important reasons for choosing it.
Chose Azure SQL Database
It stacks up in different ways, for the most part, I think Microsoft is doing a really good job versus the competition. They basically started database type products from the beginning. I've always been excited about updates and can see their progress over time. Get's me really …
Features
Azure Cosmos DBMicrosoft AccessAzure SQL Database
NoSQL Databases
Comparison of NoSQL Databases features of Product A and Product B
Azure Cosmos DB
9.9
7 Ratings
11% above category average
Microsoft Access
-
Ratings
Azure SQL Database
-
Ratings
Performance10.07 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability10.07 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Concurrency10.07 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Security10.07 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability10.07 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data model flexibility9.07 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility10.07 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Relational Databases
Comparison of Relational Databases features of Product A and Product B
Azure Cosmos DB
-
Ratings
Microsoft Access
7.7
3 Ratings
3% below category average
Azure SQL Database
-
Ratings
ACID compliance00 Ratings7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Database monitoring00 Ratings8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Database locking00 Ratings8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Encryption00 Ratings7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Disaster recovery00 Ratings7.73 Ratings00 Ratings
Flexible deployment00 Ratings8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple datatypes00 Ratings8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Azure Cosmos DB
-
Ratings
Microsoft Access
-
Ratings
Azure SQL Database
7.3
32 Ratings
15% below category average
Automatic software patching00 Ratings00 Ratings6.430 Ratings
Database scalability00 Ratings00 Ratings7.832 Ratings
Automated backups00 Ratings00 Ratings7.932 Ratings
Database security provisions00 Ratings00 Ratings8.832 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics00 Ratings00 Ratings6.831 Ratings
Automatic host deployment00 Ratings00 Ratings6.327 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Cosmos DBMicrosoft AccessAzure SQL Database
Small Businesses
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
SAP IQ
SAP IQ
Score 10.0 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Cosmos DBMicrosoft AccessAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(7 ratings)
5.0
(99 ratings)
8.0
(28 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.6
(4 ratings)
10.0
(15 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(2 ratings)
7.0
(5 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.2
(2 ratings)
6.4
(5 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Cosmos DBMicrosoft AccessAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Like any NoSQL database, whether it's MongoDB or not, it's best suited for unstructured data. It's also well suited for storing raw data before processing it and performing any type of ETL on the data.
Read full review
Microsoft
As a Material Purchasing/Planning/inventory tracking application, Microsoft Access serves its purpose well. It's presentation is clean, data entry is simple and the ability to customize search fields is welcome. It does, however, come with some caveats; namely, when setting search filters and the need arises to back up a step or two, with Microsoft Access you have to reset, or "clear all", adding extra steps/time to a query.
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Microsoft
We have found it's a great alternative for making older legacy applications work with online databases instead of only on-premises databases. We've converted over a dozen applications this way, and it has allowed our clients to have a distributed workforce using their applications without incurring the expense of a complete application rewrite.
Read full review
Pros
Microsoft
  • Scalable Instantly and automatically serverless database for any large scale business.
  • Quick access and response to data queries due to high speed in reading and writing data
  • Create a powerful digital experience for your customers with real-time offers and agile access to DB with super-fast analysis and comparison for best recommendation
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Very easy to create entity-relationship diagrams for various tables and designing mock layouts.
  • Really easy to navigate as it hold[s] the classic Microsoft UI. Another good thing is that it comes with the complete MS Office Suite.
  • It is really fast when joining multiple tables no matter what type of join.
  • Works on pretty much same SQL scripts so no need to learn a new language!
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Maintenance is always an issue, so using a cloud solution saves a lot of trouble.
  • On premise solutions always suffer from fragmented implementations here and there, where several "dba's" keep track of security and maintenance. With a cloud database it's much easier to keep a central overview.
  • Security options in SQL database are next level... data masking, hiding sensitive data where always neglected on premise, whereas you'll get this automatically in the cloud.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • Expensive, so be careful of the use case.
  • We had a thought time migrating from traditional DBs to Cosmos. Azure should provide a seamless platform for the migration of data from on-premises to cloud.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
  • The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
  • Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
  • I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • One needs to be aware that some T-SQL features are simply not available.
  • The programmatic access to server, trace flags, hardware from within Azure SQL Database is taken away (for a good reason).
  • No SQL Agent so your jobs need to be orchestrated differently.
  • The maximum concurrent logins maybe an unexpected problem.
  • Sudden disconnects.
  • The developers and admin must study the capacity and tier usage limits https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-subscription-service-limits otherwise some errors or even transaction aborts never seen before can occur.
  • Only one Latin Collation choice.
  • There is no way to debug T-SQL ( a big drawback in my point of view).
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
It's efficient, easy to scale, and works. We do have to do a bit of administration, but less now than when we started with this a couple of years ago. Microsoft continues to improve its self-management capability.
Read full review
Microsoft
I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
Read full review
Microsoft
This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
Read full review
Usability
Microsoft
It has very good compatibility and adaptability with other APIs and developers can safely create new apps because it is compatible with various tools and can be easily managed and run under the cloud, and in terms of security, it is one of the best of its kind, which is very powerful and excellent.
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Microsoft
Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
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Microsoft
The interfaces are intuitive once you are familiar with all the functions. The ability to use different tools to interact with the platform, such as directly via a browser or code editors such as VS Code or Visual Studio is a great option and allows for integrating withn the project and other testing and developing tools.
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Microsoft
Microsoft is the best when it comes to after-sales support. They have a well-structured training and knowledge base portal that anyone can use. They are usually quick to respond to cases and are on point for on-call support. I have no complaints from a support standpoint. Pretty happy with the support.
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Microsoft
While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
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Microsoft
We give the support a high rating simply because every time we've had issues or questions, representatives were in contact with us quickly. Without fail, our issues/questions were handled in a timely matter. That kind of response is integral when client data integrity and availability is in question. There is also a wealth of documentation for resolving issues on your own.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access
Read full review
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Cosmos DB is unique in the industry as a true multi-model, cloud-native database engine that comes with solutions for geo-redundancy, multi-master writes, (globally!) low latency, and cost-effective hosting built in. I've yet to see anything else that even comes close to the power that Cosmos DB packs into its solution. The simplicity and tooling support are nice bonus features as well.
Read full review
Microsoft
Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.
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Microsoft
We moved away from Oracle and NoSQL because we had been so reliant on them for the last 25 years, the pricing was too much and we were looking for a way to cut the cord. Snowflake is just too up in the air, feels like it is soon to be just another line item to add to your Azure subscription. Azure was just priced right, easy to migrate to and plenty of resources to hire to support/maintain it. Very easy to learn, too.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • It's made managing raw data much easier
  • It provides a way to maintain raw data at a low cost
  • It's easy to massage the data
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Not having to recreate queries or reports every time you want to use them.
  • Once an item is created and saved as part of the database, you save manpower by not having to recreate them.
  • ROI from a usability standpoint is great. Solid product with great functionality that requires low maintenance usually.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Perfect for small and medium databases, being very cost effective.
  • As a Platform as a Service, there is no concern about patches, upgrades and end of life.
  • Be aware of security and network capabilities. The service cannot run in the VNET as Azure Virtual Machines do.
Read full review
ScreenShots