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Azure Cosmos DB vs Cloud Firestore: What are the differences?

Introduction

Azure Cosmos DB and Cloud Firestore are both NoSQL databases offered by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform respectively. While they share some similarities in their functionality and purpose, there are several key differences that set them apart.

  1. Query Language: Azure Cosmos DB uses SQL-like query language, which allows users to write queries in a familiar and structured manner. On the other hand, Cloud Firestore uses a more flexible and scalable querying approach, enabling users to fetch data using specialized methods or through composite queries.

  2. Scalability: Azure Cosmos DB offers global scalability with its multi-region replication and elastic scaling capabilities. It allows you to distribute your data across multiple regions for high availability and offers flexible scaling options based on your workload requirements. Cloud Firestore, on the other hand, provides native support for automatic scaling, allowing your database to handle large amounts of data and traffic without manual configuration.

  3. Pricing Model: Azure Cosmos DB follows a throughput-based pricing model, where you pay for the throughput capacity provisioned. This model allows you to allocate resources precisely for your workload requirements. Cloud Firestore, on the other hand, uses a usage-based pricing model, where you pay for the amount of data stored, network egress, and operations performed. This model provides more flexibility in terms of cost management, as you pay only for what you use.

  4. Data Structure: Azure Cosmos DB offers a more flexible data model, supporting multiple data models like documents, graphs, key-value pairs, and columnar. It provides the ability to work with structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data efficiently. Cloud Firestore, on the other hand, is a document-based database, which means it is focused on storing and retrieving JSON-like documents.

  5. Real-time Updates: Cloud Firestore provides real-time updates using the Firestore Realtime Database, enabling developers to build real-time applications easily. It offers real-time synchronization for data changes across multiple devices in milliseconds. Azure Cosmos DB, on the other hand, does not provide a built-in real-time synchronization feature, but it can be integrated with Azure SignalR or other real-time messaging services to achieve similar functionality.

  6. Integration with Platform Services: Azure Cosmos DB integrates well with other Azure services, such as Azure Functions, Azure Event Grid, and Azure Data Factory, allowing easy and seamless data processing and integration across the Azure ecosystem. Cloud Firestore, on the other hand, integrates well with other Google Cloud Platform services, such as Firebase Authentication, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Storage, providing a comprehensive ecosystem for application development.

In summary, Azure Cosmos DB and Cloud Firestore differ in terms of query language, scalability options, pricing model, data structure, real-time updates, and integration with platform services. These differences make them suitable for different use cases and allow users to choose the database that best fits their requirements.

Advice on Azure Cosmos DB and Cloud Firestore

We are building a social media app, where users will post images, like their post, and make friends based on their interest. We are currently using Cloud Firestore and Firebase Realtime Database. We are looking for another database like Amazon DynamoDB; how much this decision can be efficient in terms of pricing and overhead?

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Replies (1)
William Frank
Data Science and Engineering at GeistM · | 2 upvotes · 107.1K views
Recommends

Hi, Akash,

I wouldn't make this decision without lots more information. Cloud Firestore has a much richer metamodel (document-oriented) than Dynamo (key-value), and Dynamo seems to be particularly restrictive. That is why it is so fast. There are many needs in most applications to get lightning access to the members of a set, one set at a time. Dynamo DB is a great choice. But, social media applications generally need to be able to make long traverses across a graph. While you can make almost any metamodel act like another one, with your own custom layers on top of it, or just by writing a lot more code, it's a long way around to do that with simple key-value sets. It's hard enough to traverse across networks of collections in a document-oriented database. So, if you are moving, I think a graph-oriented database like Amazon Neptune, or, if you might want built-in reasoning, Allegro or Ontotext, would take the least programming, which is where the most cost and bugs can be avoided. Also, managed systems are also less costly in terms of people's time and system errors. It's easier to measure the costs of managed systems, so they are often seen as more costly.

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Pros of Azure Cosmos DB
Pros of Cloud Firestore
  • 28
    Best-of-breed NoSQL features
  • 22
    High scalability
  • 15
    Globally distributed
  • 14
    Automatic indexing over flexible json data model
  • 10
    Tunable consistency
  • 10
    Always on with 99.99% availability sla
  • 7
    Javascript language integrated transactions and queries
  • 6
    Predictable performance
  • 5
    High performance
  • 5
    Analytics Store
  • 2
    Rapid Development
  • 2
    No Sql
  • 2
    Auto Indexing
  • 2
    Ease of use
  • 15
    Easy to use
  • 15
    Cloud Storage
  • 12
    Realtime Database
  • 12
    Easy setup
  • 9
    Super fast
  • 8
    Authentication
  • 6
    Realtime listeners
  • 5
    Could Messaging
  • 5
    Hosting
  • 5
    Google Analytics integration
  • 4
    Performance Monitoring
  • 4
    Crash Reporting
  • 3
    Sharing App via invites
  • 3
    Test Lab for Android
  • 3
    Adwords, Admob integration
  • 2
    Dynamic Links (Deeplinking support)
  • 0
    Robust ALI

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Cons of Azure Cosmos DB
Cons of Cloud Firestore
  • 18
    Pricing
  • 4
    Poor No SQL query support
  • 8
    Doesn't support FullTextSearch natively

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What is Azure Cosmos DB?

Azure DocumentDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service built for fast and predictable performance, high availability, elastic scaling, global distribution, and ease of development.

What is Cloud Firestore?

Cloud Firestore is a NoSQL document database that lets you easily store, sync, and query data for your mobile and web apps - at global scale.

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What companies use Azure Cosmos DB?
What companies use Cloud Firestore?
See which teams inside your own company are using Azure Cosmos DB or Cloud Firestore.
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What tools integrate with Azure Cosmos DB?
What tools integrate with Cloud Firestore?

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What are some alternatives to Azure Cosmos DB and Cloud Firestore?
Azure SQL Database
It is the intelligent, scalable, cloud database service that provides the broadest SQL Server engine compatibility and up to a 212% return on investment. It is a database service that can quickly and efficiently scale to meet demand, is automatically highly available, and supports a variety of third party software.
MongoDB Atlas
MongoDB Atlas is a global cloud database service built and run by the team behind MongoDB. Enjoy the flexibility and scalability of a document database, with the ease and automation of a fully managed service on your preferred cloud.
MongoDB
MongoDB stores data in JSON-like documents that can vary in structure, offering a dynamic, flexible schema. MongoDB was also designed for high availability and scalability, with built-in replication and auto-sharding.
Neo4j
Neo4j stores data in nodes connected by directed, typed relationships with properties on both, also known as a Property Graph. It is a high performance graph store with all the features expected of a mature and robust database, like a friendly query language and ACID transactions.
MySQL
The MySQL software delivers a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software.
See all alternatives