DB-EnginesExtremeDB for everyone with an RTOSEnglish
Deutsch
Knowledge Base of Relational and NoSQL Database Management Systemsprovided by solid IT

DBMS > Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Snowflake vs. TerarkDB

System Properties Comparison Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB vs. Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs. Snowflake vs. TerarkDB

Please select another system to include it in the comparison.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft Azure Cosmos DB infoformer name was Azure DocumentDB  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL Azure  Xexclude from comparisonSnowflake  Xexclude from comparisonTerarkDB  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionGlobally distributed, horizontally scalable, multi-model database serviceDatabase as a Service offering with high compatibility to Microsoft SQL ServerCloud-based data warehousing service for structured and semi-structured dataA key-value store forked from RocksDB with advanced compression algorithms. It can be used standalone or as a storage engine for MySQL and MongoDB
Primary database modelDocument store
Graph DBMS
Key-value store
Wide column store
Relational DBMSRelational DBMSKey-value store
Secondary database modelsSpatial DBMSDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score29.85
Rank#27  Overall
#4  Document stores
#2  Graph DBMS
#3  Key-value stores
#3  Wide column stores
Score78.40
Rank#15  Overall
#10  Relational DBMS
Score123.20
Rank#9  Overall
#6  Relational DBMS
Score0.04
Rank#377  Overall
#58  Key-value stores
Websiteazure.microsoft.com/­services/­cosmos-dbazure.microsoft.com/­en-us/­products/­azure-sql/­databasewww.snowflake.comgithub.com/­bytedance/­terarkdb
Technical documentationlearn.microsoft.com/­azure/­cosmos-dbdocs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­azure-sqldocs.snowflake.net/­manuals/­index.htmlbytedance.larkoffice.com/­docs/­doccnZmYFqHBm06BbvYgjsHHcKc
DeveloperMicrosoftMicrosoftSnowflake Computing Inc.ByteDance, originally Terark
Initial release2014201020142016
Current releaseV12
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercialcommercialcommercialcommercial inforestricted open source version available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud serviceyesyesyesno
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.
Implementation languageC++C++
Server operating systemshostedhostedhosted
Data schemeschema-freeyesyes infosupport of semi-structured data formats (JSON, XML, Avro)schema-free
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyes infoJSON typesyesyesno
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.yesyesno
Secondary indexesyes infoAll properties auto-indexed by defaultyesno
SQL infoSupport of SQLSQL-like query languageyesyesno
APIs and other access methodsDocumentDB API
Graph API (Gremlin)
MongoDB API
RESTful HTTP API
Table API
ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC
C++ API
Java API
Supported programming languages.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript (Node.js)
MongoDB client drivers written for various programming languages
Python
.Net
C#
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
JavaScript (Node.js)
Python
C++
Java
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresJavaScriptTransact SQLuser defined functionsno
TriggersJavaScriptyesno infosimilar concept for controling cloud resourcesno
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceyesnone
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceyes, with always 3 replicas availableyesnone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodswith Hadoop integration infoIntegration with Hadoop/HDInsight on Azure*nonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemBounded Staleness
Consistent Prefix
Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency infoConsistency level configurable on request level
Session Consistency
Immediate ConsistencyImmediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integritynoyesyesno
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataMulti-item ACID transactions with snapshot isolation within a partitionACIDACIDno
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.noyes
User concepts infoAccess controlAccess rights can be defined down to the item levelfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers with fine-grained authorization concept, user roles and pluggable authenticationno

More information provided by the system vendor

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services
3rd partiesCData: Connect to Big Data & NoSQL through standard Drivers.
» more
CData: Connect to Big Data & NoSQL through standard Drivers.
» more

We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB infoformer name was Azure DocumentDBMicrosoft Azure SQL Database infoformerly SQL AzureSnowflakeTerarkDB
DB-Engines blog posts

PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2020
4 January 2021, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

Cloud-based DBMS's popularity grows at high rates
12 December 2019, Paul Andlinger

The popularity of cloud-based DBMSs has increased tenfold in four years
7 February 2017, Matthias Gelbmann

show all

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2022, defending the title from last year
3 January 2023, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

Snowflake is the DBMS of the Year 2021
3 January 2022, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

show all

Recent citations in the news

Public preview: Filtered vector search in vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB | Azure updates
24 April 2024, Microsoft

General availability: Microsoft Entra ID integration with Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL | Azure updates
13 March 2024, Microsoft

Azure Synapse Link for Cosmos DB: New Analytics Capabilities
10 November 2023, InfoQ.com

How to Migrate Azure Cosmos DB Databases | by Arwin Lashawn
25 August 2023, DataDrivenInvestor

Azure Cosmos DB joins the AI toolchain
23 May 2023, InfoWorld

provided by Google News

Copilot in Azure SQL Database in Private Preview
27 March 2024, InfoQ.com

Public Preview: Azure SQL updates for mid-November 2023 | Azure updates
15 November 2023, Microsoft

Microsoft unveils Copilot for Azure SQL Database
27 March 2024, InfoWorld

Azure SQL Database takes Saturday off on US east coast following network power failure
18 September 2023, The Register

Microsoft Announces a New Azure SQL Database Free Offer in Public Preview
1 October 2023, InfoQ.com

provided by Google News

Snowflake Data Clean Rooms Democratize Secure Data Sharing Across Clouds
24 April 2024, Acceleration Economy

Porch Group Media Launches Consumer Insight Data on Snowflake Marketplace
24 April 2024, CMSWire

Snowflake targets enterprise AI with launch of Arctic LLM
24 April 2024, TechTarget

Snowflake releases a flagship generative AI model of its own
24 April 2024, TechCrunch

Snowflake launches Arctic, an open 'mixture-of-experts' LLM to take on DBRX, Llama 3
24 April 2024, VentureBeat

provided by Google News

A Chinese company is making the cloud 200x faster ยท TechNode
3 July 2017, TechNode

provided by Google News



Share this page

Featured Products

Datastax Astra logo

Bring all your data to Generative AI applications with vector search enabled by the most scalable
vector database available.
Try for Free

Milvus logo

Vector database designed for GenAI, fully equipped for enterprise implementation.
Try Managed Milvus for Free

Ontotext logo

GraphDB allows you to link diverse data, index it for semantic search and enrich it via text analysis to build big knowledge graphs. Get it free.

Neo4j logo

See for yourself how a graph database can make your life easier.
Use Neo4j online for free.

SingleStore logo

The database to transact, analyze and contextualize your data in real time.
Try it today.

Present your product here