Azure Cosmos DB
Shares rank 13 of 15 managed databases by recommenders
A cloud-only database that suits some workloads; critics say it is expensive per request, slow, and has had serious security flaws.
A cloud-only database that suits some workloads; critics say it is expensive per request, slow, and has had serious security flaws.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 14
- approval share
- 26%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fits some specific needs
“when cosmosdb might fit their needs”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Costly, request-based pricing
“CosmosDb NoSql is expensive (RU based) and the SDK is horrible”
Comment from 25 Jan 2026 in “Scaling PostgreSQL to power 800M ChatGPT users” “CosmosDB doesn’t even have a local install edition. Conversely the cloud hosted offering is slower than cold molasses and costs most of your body parts… per month.”
Comment from 5 Jun 2026 in “pg_durable: Microsoft open sources in-database durable execution” “Not great when you are paying per transaction.”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce” - Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Scaling PostgreSQL to power 800M ChatGPT users”
Serious security flaws and footguns
“A critical vulnerability chain in Azure Cosmos DB enabled full read and write access to every Cosmos DB database.”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “CosmosEscape: Taking over Every Database in Azure Cosmos DB” “a shock that anyone is trusting Microsoft, Azure or in particular Cosmos DB with anything mission critical”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “CosmosEscape: Taking over Every Database in Azure Cosmos DB” “"Cosmos Master Key"... I can see why that would have been convenient, but talk about a footgun.”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “CosmosEscape: Taking over Every Database in Azure Cosmos DB” - Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “CosmosEscape: Taking over Every Database in Azure Cosmos DB”
Slow performance for the price
“CosmosDB doesn’t even have a local install edition. Conversely the cloud hosted offering is slower than cold molasses and costs most of your body parts… per month.”
Comment from 5 Jun 2026 in “pg_durable: Microsoft open sources in-database durable execution” “the best performance I have ever managed to squeeze out of it could be generously classified as "glacial"”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Decisions that eroded trust in Azure – by a former Azure Core engineer” “They spent hundreds of thousands on cosmosDB, for less performance than a raspberry pi running Postgres.”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Decisions that eroded trust in Azure – by a former Azure Core engineer”
Other managed databases people recommend
The four most recommended other managed databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon RDS | 50 | 43 | 54% | 11 | — | — |
| Neon Postgres | 48 | 10 | 83% | 12 | — | Approved |
| DynamoDB | 46 | 31 | 60% | 11 | — | — |
| Cloudflare D1 | 36 | 30 | 55% | 10 | — | — |
| Azure Cosmos DBThis page | 5 | 14 | 26% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
17 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Not great when you are paying per transaction.”
“when cosmosdb might fit their needs”
“i love databases def not cosmosdb”
“These restrictions, however, didn't sufficiently account for .NET reflection”
“It took them 6 months to fix this properly?”
“a shock that anyone is trusting Microsoft, Azure or in particular Cosmos DB with anything mission critical”
“"Cosmos Master Key"... I can see why that would have been convenient, but talk about a footgun.”
“A critical vulnerability chain in Azure Cosmos DB enabled full read and write access to every Cosmos DB database.”
“CosmosDB, Google Firestore, Kusto, Elastic, Druid, and many columnar formats are in this category of "magically" faster!”
“The entire point is to lock you in.”
“CosmosDB doesn’t even have a local install edition. Conversely the cloud hosted offering is slower than cold molasses and costs most of your body parts… per month.”
“the best performance I have ever managed to squeeze out of it could be generously classified as "glacial"”
“They spent hundreds of thousands on cosmosDB, for less performance than a raspberry pi running Postgres.”
“an unwieldy assemblage of a graph DB, a NoSQL DB, a time series DB and an RDBMS”
“CosmosDb NoSql is expensive (RU based) and the SDK is horrible”
“Azure CosmosDB is insanely expensive.”
“I recall seeing this also happening in CosmosDB. Both auto and manual”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.