Comparing MongoDB as a Service Offering
MongoDB Atlas is delivered by the same team that builds MongoDB. However, other providers offer their own imitations of MongoDB, each with varying levels of compatibility. The chart below shows how these options compare to each other.
Comparison of MongoDB Atlas, DocumentDB, Cosmos DB vCore, and Cosmos DB RU
Table of contents
Overview
| Feature | MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB (vCore/RU) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Choice of cloud providers | Yes, managed multi-cloud service in 125+ regions on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud; supports multi-cloud clusters | No, AWS only | No, Azure only |
| Integrated text search, geospatial processing | Yes, native text indexes, Lucene indexes with Atlas Search, support for GeoJSON, polygons, and intersection query operators | Limited, basic text indexes, basic geospatial operators, requires separate AWS services for advanced text search | Limited text and geospatial operators in Cosmos DB vCore; Cosmos DB RU does not have an integrated text search |
| Supports all MongoDB features with full application compatibility | Yes, runs native MongoDB, full compatibility | No, incomplete imitation API | No, incomplete imitation API |
| Access to the latest MongoDB version | Yes, supports all versions, quarterly minor releases | No | No |
| Free Tier | Yes, 512 MB storage, variable RAM (Atlas Shared instances) | No | Limited, first 400 RU/s for RU (not sandboxed, risk of cost overrun); vCore offers a free tier with 32 GB storage, and other limitations |
| Live migration | Yes, resistant to interruptions, filterable, topology agnostic | Yes, available as a separate paid service | Yes, only for eligible accounts |
| Choice of instance configuration | Yes, memory-optimized, storage-optimized, general-purpose instances, multiple sizes/classes | Limited memory-optimized instances, single AWS class | vCore based on cluster tier (VCPU, RAM, storage); RU based on provisioned throughput (RU/s), no hardware selection |
| Support for MongoDB multi-document ACID transactions | Yes, ACID-compliant across collections/partitions, no limit (≤1,000 operations recommended) | Limited, ambiguous commits, poor error handling, no cross-shard transactions, and fails half of the MongoDB transaction tests | Yes, in vCore; in RU, no cross-shard/collection transactions, 5-second timeout, max 100 operations (RU) or 30-second lifetime (vCore) |
| JSON data type support | BSON (Binary JSON) supports longs, vector type, doubles, floats, decimals, dates, and times | Primitive JSON with some advanced types | BSON, basic JSON plus longs, doubles, floats, decimals, dates, times; vCore vectors as number[], some type restrictions |
| JSON schema for data governance controls | Yes, schema controls are enforced in the database | No, schema controls in application, $jsonSchema supported but no bypass options | No; schema controls must be written in the application |
| Integrated querying of data in cloud object storage | Yes, Atlas Data Federation queries MongoDB clusters, AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Object Storage | No, requires separate Amazon services | Partial, Azure Synapse Link syncs data to a separate analytical store, duplicates data, and uses separate APIs |
| Online Archive | Yes, automatically tiers data to Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Object Storage | No | No |
| Blend data with joins and unions for analytics queries | Yes, Atlas Data Federation and aggregation pipeline support joins ($lookup) and unions | No | No, limited aggregation framework, no native joins/unions |
| Automatic Performance Recommendations | Yes, Performance Advisor with index, schema, sharding recommendations, 100+ metrics | No, | No, limited telemetry, no recommendations |
| Replica Set Configuration | Up to 50 replicas, all data-bearing nodes | Up to 15 replicas, not data-bearing, 6 copies at the storage layer | 2 data-bearing nodes in vCore |
| Automatic Sharding Support | Yes, full sharding with range, hash, zone options, refinable shard keys, live resharding, multi-TB shards, and shard key advisor | No sharding, single primary for writes, Elastic Clusters offer basic hash-sharding (prone to hot partitions) | Yes, hash sharding only, no shard key refinement |
| Pause and resume clusters | Yes | Yes | No |
| Data Explorer | Yes, Atlas UI and MongoDB Compass | No | Yes |
| SQL-based BI Connectivity | Yes, MongoDB SQL Connector, Tableau Connector | No | Yes, Power BI and Qlik Sense only (limited) |
| Native data visualization without 3rd-party BI tools | Yes, MongoDB Charts | No | No |
| Database supported in on-premise and hybrid deployments | Yes, MongoDB Enterprise Advanced, Atlas CLI, and hybrid configurations | No, AWS only | No, Azure only |
Global Clusters
| Feature | MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB (vCore/RU) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active-active clusters supporting global writes | Yes, Atlas Global Clusters, active-active, write everywhere, strong consistency | No, one primary region with up to 10 read-only secondary regions; writes only in the primary region | Yes, multi-primary (RU), conflict resolution risks data loss, and eventual consistency by default; no, for vCore |
| Cross-region replication | Yes, multi-region fault tolerance, local reads | Limited, read-only operations, writes locked to primary | Yes, read-only eventual consistency with asynchronous replication |
Monitoring and Disaster Recovery
| Feature | MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB (vCore/RU) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling of compute and storage | Yes, dedicated instances auto-scale | Partial, automatic storage, and manual instance scaling. | Yes, RU autoscaled (50% upcharge), storage scaling in vCore is manual; compute scaling is manual for all tiers except M200, which can scale from M80 to M200 |
| Monitoring of database health with automated alerting | Yes, Atlas UI, 100+ metrics, supports APM platforms (e.g., New Relic) | Partial, limited account-level metrics | Partial, limited account-level metrics |
| Backup snapshots with on-demand, point-in-time restore | Yes | Yes | Yes (vCore limited to 30-day/7-day window), RU limited, snapshots every 4 hours, requires a support ticket, 8-hour overwrite risk |
| Queryable backups | Yes | No | No |
| Automated and consistent snapshots of sharded clusters | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Security Controls
| Feature | MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB (vCore/RU) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queryable encryption | Yes, supports equality and range queries | No | No |
| Client-side field-level encryption | Yes, full encryption, no plaintext access, supports right to erasure | No | Partial, limited to Java/.Net drivers for SQL API, not true encryption, cannot encrypt all fields |
| Bring your own KMS | Yes | No, AWS KMS only | No, Azure Key Vault only |
| Granular, role-based access control | Yes | Partial, coarse-grained roles, read/write, can drop collections/indexes | Partial, coarse-grained roles |
| AWS VPC Peering | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Encryption of data in-flight | Yes, TLS/SSL standard | Yes | Yes |
| Encryption of data at rest | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| LDAP Integration | Yes | No | Yes |
| Database-level auditing | Yes, tracks DDL, DML, DCL operations | No | Yes |
Support and Services
| Feature | MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB (vCore/RU) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Database support delivered directly by MongoDB engineers | Yes, optional support contract | No | No |
| Consulting services from engineers with multiple years of MongoDB expertise | Yes, MongoDB Consulting Services | No | No |