Azure Cosmos DB vs Microsoft SQL Server | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.1 out of 10

Based on 25 reviews and ratings

Score 8.9 out of 10

Based on 1318 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Performance

Availability

Concurrency

Security

Scalability

Data model flexibility

Deployment model flexibility

Pros

Injects unstructured data at a very high speed.
No real need for administrative work, it indexes everything on it's own.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Good range of data types helps us store lots of diverse data
Easy administration helps us control who has access and what they can do with the data
Backup and restore processes are easy to manage and provide good security
Data can be easily replicated from Server to Server for use in other countries

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Data Analyst / Scuba Dive Instructor

Haymarket PublishingMedia Production, 1001-5000 employees

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Cons

Cosmos DB can be very expensive if you're using it for scenarios that are better completed in regular old Azure Table Storage or Blob Storage, specifically if you put some thought into your partitioning schemes. No product is a good substitute for thoughtful system design.
It would be helpful if I had some more insight into how many resources (DTUs) an individual query uses.
The auto-indexing is great, but a little mysterious -- not usually an issue but it does require some intentional thought.

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Solutions Architect

Netrix, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 201-500 employees

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Enterprise is unbelievably expensive.
Not tolerant of bad practices and poor query writing, really shows up when you do it badly!
Deep insight into what is happening with query performance is not especially great (but as mentioned in the "Pros", software support from third parties does cover this).

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Retail Company, 201-500 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Azure Cosmos DB 7.9

Based on 4 answers

The total cost of ownership is much higher than anticipated. The documentation for their API calls is still not complete. TCO did go up as a result as well. Having users learning another JQL-like language also added more complexity to it. Support of ANSI-SQL would be ideal. But the cost of managing it is much less compared to Redis, Mongo, or Cassandra.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Biotechnology Company, 11-50 employees

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Microsoft SQL Server 9.0

Based on 6 answers

We understand that the Microsoft SQL Server will continue to advance, offering the same robust and reliable platform while adding new features that enable us, as a software center, to create a superior product. That provides excellent performance while reducing the hardware requirements and the total cost of ownership of our solution.

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Lisandro Fernigrini

Sr Database Administrator / Developer

Kapsch TrafficcomInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees

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Usability

Azure Cosmos DB 8.0

Based on 1 answer

Like I said, Cosmos is the way to go. From all of the services that Azure has, Cosmos is very robust in terms of usability. It's ever-evolving and integrates with other applications seamlessly. The interface is pretty easy to understand. I implemented various solutions for my company and Cosmos was one of them.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Pharmaceuticals Company, 10,001+ employees

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Microsoft SQL Server 9.1

Based on 10 answers

SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.

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Senior Consultant

NavigantUtilities, 1001-5000 employees

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Reliability and Availability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Microsoft SQL Server 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Its does not have outages.

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Sr MS SQL BI Developer

Georgia-Pacific LLCConsumer Goods, 1001-5000 employees

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Performance

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Microsoft SQL Server 9.0

Based on 1 answer

SSAS data cubes may some time slow down your Excel reports.

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Sr MS SQL BI Developer

Georgia-Pacific LLCConsumer Goods, 1001-5000 employees

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Support Rating

Azure Cosmos DB 10.0

Based on 1 answer

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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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Pharmaceuticals Company, 10,001+ employees

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Microsoft SQL Server 8.0

Based on 32 answers

We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.

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Software Engineer

King-ICTComputer Software, 501-1000 employees

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In-Person Training

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Microsoft SQL Server 9.0

Based on 1 answer

It was good

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Sr MS SQL BI Developer

Georgia-Pacific LLCConsumer Goods, 1001-5000 employees

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Online Training

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Microsoft SQL Server 9.0

Based on 1 answer

very hands on and detailed training

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Sr MS SQL BI Developer

Georgia-Pacific LLCConsumer Goods, 1001-5000 employees

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Implementation Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Microsoft SQL Server 9.0

Based on 6 answers

Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.

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Database Administrator

AderantComputer Software, 201-500 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed NoSQL database & globally distributed NoSQL database service. Its very fast and predictable performance, high availability, elastic scaling, global distribution, and ease of development DB platform compare to MongoDB.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Computer Software Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Microsoft SQL Server is one of the fastest RDBMS systems available in the market. Pricing is a bit on the higher side but all the features it provides pretty much justifies it. It can be integrated with a large number of frameworks thus enabling to work on multiple frameworks for your application without much worrying about the backend support or compatibility.

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Verified User

Engineer in Product Management

Financial Services Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Scalability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Microsoft SQL Server 9.0

Based on 1 answer

SQL server does handle growing demands of a mid sized company.

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Sr MS SQL BI Developer

Georgia-Pacific LLCConsumer Goods, 1001-5000 employees

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Return on Investment

Azure Cosmos DB may be expensive on its own, but it was cheaper than increasing the size/power of our VMs running SQL Server instances enough to keep up with the volume and velocity of the unstructured data.
We got the JSON data out of our SQL Servers and they quit tipping over.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employees

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With just one server we can easily host databases for many applications, which makes it easier to maintain.
The ROI on Microsoft SQL Server is very good as we have been able to set it and forget with out too much time invested in keeping it up and running.
The Microsoft SQL Server down time has been minimal and 90% of the downtime is due to our user error.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Individual & Family Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Azure Cosmos DB Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Microsoft SQL Server Editions & Modules

Edition

Enterprise	$13,748.00¹
Subscription	$1,418.00¹

Per License

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Cosmos DB

Microsoft SQL Server

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