Comparing MongoDB as a Service Offerings
MongoDB Atlas is delivered by the same team that builds MongoDB. But it’s not the only MongoDB service available to you. The chart below shows how the different options stack up.*
*as of March 2021
Overview
| MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Choice of cloud providers | Yes AWS, Azure & Google Cloud, including multi-cloud clusters spanning all three cloud platforms | No | No |
| Integrated text search, geospatial processing | Yes | LimitedData must be replicated to multiple adjacent AWS services for text search, only basic geospatial operators, driving up cost and complexity | LimitedSome support for geospatial data, but with limited indexing |
| Supports all MongoDB features with full application compatibility | Yes Runs native MongoDB | No Claims compatibility with v4.0 API, which is only partially true. No MongoDB server side code Fails 64% of compatibility tests. | No Claims compatibility with v4.0 API, actually closer to 3.6. No MongoDB server side code. Fails 66% of compatibility tests. |
| Access to the latest MongoDB version | Yes Run v7.0, 6.0, 5.0 or v4.4. | No Claims compatibility with v4.0 API, which is only partially true. | No Claims compatibility with v4.0 API, actually closer to 3.6. |
| Free Tier | Yes Storage: 512 MB, RAM: Variable | No | Limited Just for the first 400 RU/s. Not sandboxed, so no way to avoid cost if usage increases beyond the 400RU limit |
| Live migration | Yes Resistant to initial interruptions, filterable, topology agnostic. | Yes Available as separate paid service | Yes Only for eligible accounts |
| Choice of instance configuration | Yes Multiple instance sizes and classes | Limited Around a dozen instances only, all of a single AWS class, limiting flexibility in accommodating different workload profiles | No Configuration based on provisioned throughput. No way to independently select underlying hardware configurations |
| Support for MongoDB multi-document ACID transactions | Yes | Limited Missing features, fail over half of transaction tests in standard MongoDB test suite | Limited Multi-document transactions are supported only within a single, unsharded collection; almost all of MongoDB's transaction tests fail |
| JSON data type support | BSON (Binary JSON) Regular JSON + longs, doubles, floats, decimal, dates, and times | Primitive JSON and some advanced data types, but does not support decimal | BSON Some data types have restrictions, including the inability to modify them once set |
| Maximum document size | 16MB | 16MB | 2MB |
| JSON schema for data governance controls | Yes | No All schema controls must be written in the app tier | No All schema controls must be written in the app tier |
| Integrated text search and graph queries | Yes MongoDB aggregation pipeline and Atlas Search | Partial No integrated text search | Partial No integrated text search |
| Integrated querying of data in cloud object storage | Yes Atlas Data Federation | No | No |
Online Archive Automatically tier data out from database to cloud object storage | Yes Online Archive | No | No |
| Blend data with joins and unions for analytics queries | Yes | No | No |
| Automatic Performance Recommendations | Yes Performance Advisor with schema and index recommendations | No | No |
| Replica Set Configuration | Up to 50 replicas All replicas configured as data-bearing nodes | Up to 15 replicas Replicas are not data-bearing. DocumentDB maintains 6 copies of data at the storage layer | 3 data-bearing nodes |
| Automatic Sharding Support | Yes Scale writes horizontally across multiple nodes. Store multiple TB of data on a single shard. Ability to refine shard key as application requirements evolve. Since 7.0, shard key advisor commands provide metrics that facilitate shard key refining. | No sharding support All writes must be made to a single primary node only. | Yes However, no support to refine the chosen shard key, forcing a full database migration should the shard key need to change in any way. |
Hedged Reads Queries submitted to multiple replicas for consistent low latency | Yes | No | No |
| Pause and resume clusters | Yes | Yes | No |
| Data Explorer | Yes Directly in Atlas UI, or via MongoDB Compass | No | Yes |
| SQL-based BI Connectivity | Yes MongoDB SQL Connector | No | Yes Power BI and Qlik Sense only |
| 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 | No | No |
| Embeddable database with sync for mobile, edge and IoT devices | Yes Atlas for the Edge provides Atlas Device Sync & SDKs | No | No |
| MongoDB Atlas | |
|---|---|
| Choice of cloud providers | Yes AWS, Azure & Google Cloud, including multi-cloud clusters spanning all three cloud platforms |
| Integrated text search, geospatial processing | Yes |
| Supports all MongoDB features with full application compatibility | Yes Runs native MongoDB |
| Access to the latest MongoDB version | Yes Run v7.0, 6.0, 5.0 or v4.4. |
| Free Tier | Yes Storage: 512 MB, RAM: Variable |
| Live migration | Yes Resistant to initial interruptions, filterable, topology agnostic. |
| Choice of instance configuration | Yes Multiple instance sizes and classes |
| Support for MongoDB multi-document ACID transactions | Yes |
| JSON data type support | BSON (Binary JSON) Regular JSON + longs, doubles, floats, decimal, dates, and times |
| Maximum document size | 16MB |
| JSON schema for data governance controls | Yes |
| Integrated text search and graph queries | Yes MongoDB aggregation pipeline and Atlas Search |
| Integrated querying of data in cloud object storage | Yes Atlas Data Federation |
Online Archive Automatically tier data out from database to cloud object storage | Yes Online Archive |
| Blend data with joins and unions for analytics queries | Yes |
| Automatic Performance Recommendations | Yes Performance Advisor with schema and index recommendations |
| Replica Set Configuration | Up to 50 replicas All replicas configured as data-bearing nodes |
| Automatic Sharding Support | Yes Scale writes horizontally across multiple nodes. Store multiple TB of data on a single shard. Ability to refine shard key as application requirements evolve. Since 7.0, shard key advisor commands provide metrics that facilitate shard key refining. |
Hedged Reads Queries submitted to multiple replicas for consistent low latency | Yes |
| Pause and resume clusters | Yes |
| Data Explorer | Yes Directly in Atlas UI, or via MongoDB Compass |
| SQL-based BI Connectivity | Yes MongoDB SQL Connector |
| Native data visualization without 3rd party BI tools | Yes MongoDB Charts |
| Database supported in on-premise and hybrid deployments | Yes MongoDB Enterprise Advanced |
| Embeddable database with sync for mobile, edge and IoT devices | Yes Atlas for the Edge provides Atlas Device Sync & SDKs |
| Amazon DocumentDB | |
|---|---|
| Choice of cloud providers | No |
| Integrated text search, geospatial processing | LimitedData must be replicated to multiple adjacent AWS services for text search, only basic geospatial operators, driving up cost and complexity |
| Supports all MongoDB features with full application compatibility | No Claims compatibility with v4.0 API, which is only partially true. No MongoDB server side code Fails 64% of compatibility tests. |
| Access to the latest MongoDB version | No Claims compatibility with v4.0 API, which is only partially true. |
| Free Tier | No |
| Live migration | Yes Available as separate paid service |
| Choice of instance configuration | Limited Around a dozen instances only, all of a single AWS class, limiting flexibility in accommodating different workload profiles |
| Support for MongoDB multi-document ACID transactions | Limited Missing features, fail over half of transaction tests in standard MongoDB test suite |
| JSON data type support | Primitive JSON and some advanced data types, but does not support decimal |
| Maximum document size | 16MB |
| JSON schema for data governance controls | No All schema controls must be written in the app tier |
| Integrated text search and graph queries | Partial No integrated text search |
| Integrated querying of data in cloud object storage | No |
Online Archive Automatically tier data out from database to cloud object storage | No |
| Blend data with joins and unions for analytics queries | No |
| Automatic Performance Recommendations | No |
| Replica Set Configuration | Up to 15 replicas Replicas are not data-bearing. DocumentDB maintains 6 copies of data at the storage layer |
| Automatic Sharding Support | No sharding support All writes must be made to a single primary node only. |
Hedged Reads Queries submitted to multiple replicas for consistent low latency | No |
| Pause and resume clusters | Yes |
| Data Explorer | No |
| SQL-based BI Connectivity | No |
| Native data visualization without 3rd party BI tools | No |
| Database supported in on-premise and hybrid deployments | No |
| Embeddable database with sync for mobile, edge and IoT devices | No |
| Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|
| Choice of cloud providers | No |
| Integrated text search, geospatial processing | LimitedSome support for geospatial data, but with limited indexing |
| Supports all MongoDB features with full application compatibility | No Claims compatibility with v4.0 API, actually closer to 3.6. No MongoDB server side code. Fails 66% of compatibility tests. |
| Access to the latest MongoDB version | No Claims compatibility with v4.0 API, actually closer to 3.6. |
| Free Tier | Limited Just for the first 400 RU/s. Not sandboxed, so no way to avoid cost if usage increases beyond the 400RU limit |
| Live migration | Yes Only for eligible accounts |
| Choice of instance configuration | No Configuration based on provisioned throughput. No way to independently select underlying hardware configurations |
| Support for MongoDB multi-document ACID transactions | Limited Multi-document transactions are supported only within a single, unsharded collection; almost all of MongoDB's transaction tests fail |
| JSON data type support | BSON Some data types have restrictions, including the inability to modify them once set |
| Maximum document size | 2MB |
| JSON schema for data governance controls | No All schema controls must be written in the app tier |
| Integrated text search and graph queries | Partial No integrated text search |
| Integrated querying of data in cloud object storage | No |
Online Archive Automatically tier data out from database to cloud object storage | No |
| Blend data with joins and unions for analytics queries | No |
| Automatic Performance Recommendations | No |
| Replica Set Configuration | 3 data-bearing nodes |
| Automatic Sharding Support | Yes However, no support to refine the chosen shard key, forcing a full database migration should the shard key need to change in any way. |
Hedged Reads Queries submitted to multiple replicas for consistent low latency | No |
| Pause and resume clusters | No |
| Data Explorer | Yes |
| SQL-based BI Connectivity | Yes Power BI and Qlik Sense only |
| Native data visualization without 3rd party BI tools | No |
| Database supported in on-premise and hybrid deployments | No |
| Embeddable database with sync for mobile, edge and IoT devices | No |
Global Clusters
| MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|---|---|
Active-active clusters supporting global writes Low-latency writes from anywhere in the world | Yes | No Single AWS region only, only one writeable node | Yes Risk of data loss due to conflict resolution. Reads can be eventually consistent (returning stale or deleted data) |
Cross-region replication Distribute data around the world for multi-region fault tolerance and local reads | Yes | Limited Read operations only. Writes locked to primary only | Yes Reads can be eventually consistent (returning stale or deleted data) |
| MongoDB Atlas | |
|---|---|
Active-active clusters supporting global writes Low-latency writes from anywhere in the world | Yes |
Cross-region replication Distribute data around the world for multi-region fault tolerance and local reads | Yes |
| Amazon DocumentDB | |
|---|---|
Active-active clusters supporting global writes Low-latency writes from anywhere in the world | No Single AWS region only, only one writeable node |
Cross-region replication Distribute data around the world for multi-region fault tolerance and local reads | Limited Read operations only. Writes locked to primary only |
| Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|
Active-active clusters supporting global writes Low-latency writes from anywhere in the world | Yes Risk of data loss due to conflict resolution. Reads can be eventually consistent (returning stale or deleted data) |
Cross-region replication Distribute data around the world for multi-region fault tolerance and local reads | Yes Reads can be eventually consistent (returning stale or deleted data) |
Monitoring and Disaster Recovery
| MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling of compute and storage | Yes | No. Storage only | Yes 50% upcharge for autoscaling, can only scale within a certain tier |
| Monitoring of database health with automated alerting | Yes MongoDB Atlas UI & support for APM platforms (i.e., New Relic) | Partial Only a limited number of account-level metrics are exposed | Partial Only a limited number of account-level metrics are exposed |
| Backup snapshots with on-demand Point in Time restore | Yes | Yes | No Snapshots taken every 4 hours. Service ticket must be raised for Cosmos DB support to restore the backup. Must be completed within 8 hours or snapshots are overwritten and data is lost |
| Queryable backups | Yes | No | No |
| Automated & consistent snapshots of sharded clusters | Yes | N/a Sharding not supported | Yes |
| MongoDB Atlas | |
|---|---|
| Automatic scaling of compute and storage | Yes |
| Monitoring of database health with automated alerting | Yes MongoDB Atlas UI & support for APM platforms (i.e., New Relic) |
| Backup snapshots with on-demand Point in Time restore | Yes |
| Queryable backups | Yes |
| Automated & consistent snapshots of sharded clusters | Yes |
| Amazon DocumentDB | |
|---|---|
| Automatic scaling of compute and storage | No. Storage only |
| Monitoring of database health with automated alerting | Partial Only a limited number of account-level metrics are exposed |
| Backup snapshots with on-demand Point in Time restore | Yes |
| Queryable backups | No |
| Automated & consistent snapshots of sharded clusters | N/a Sharding not supported |
| Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|
| Automatic scaling of compute and storage | Yes 50% upcharge for autoscaling, can only scale within a certain tier |
| Monitoring of database health with automated alerting | Partial Only a limited number of account-level metrics are exposed |
| Backup snapshots with on-demand Point in Time restore | No Snapshots taken every 4 hours. Service ticket must be raised for Cosmos DB support to restore the backup. Must be completed within 8 hours or snapshots are overwritten and data is lost |
| Queryable backups | No |
| Automated & consistent snapshots of sharded clusters | Yes |
Security Control
| MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|---|---|
Queryable encryption Run expressive queries against encrypted data without decryption | Yes | No | No |
Client-side field level encryption Encryption of data in-use. Data not readable by service provider | Yes | No | Partial Preview only and limited capabilities |
| Bring your own KMS | Yes | No AWS KMS only | No Azure key vault only |
| Granular role-based access control | Yes | Partial Limited coarse-grained roles only | Partial Limited coarse-grained roles only |
| AWS VPC Peering | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Encryption of data in-flight | Yes TLS/SSL as standard | Yes | Yes |
| Encryption of data at-rest | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| LDAP Integration | Yes | No | Yes |
Database-level auditing Track DDL, DML, DCL operations | Yes | No | Yes |
| MongoDB Atlas | |
|---|---|
Queryable encryption Run expressive queries against encrypted data without decryption | Yes |
Client-side field level encryption Encryption of data in-use. Data not readable by service provider | Yes |
| Bring your own KMS | Yes |
| Granular role-based access control | Yes |
| AWS VPC Peering | Yes |
| Encryption of data in-flight | Yes TLS/SSL as standard |
| Encryption of data at-rest | Yes |
| LDAP Integration | Yes |
Database-level auditing Track DDL, DML, DCL operations | Yes |
| Amazon DocumentDB | |
|---|---|
Queryable encryption Run expressive queries against encrypted data without decryption | No |
Client-side field level encryption Encryption of data in-use. Data not readable by service provider | No |
| Bring your own KMS | No AWS KMS only |
| Granular role-based access control | Partial Limited coarse-grained roles only |
| AWS VPC Peering | Yes |
| Encryption of data in-flight | Yes |
| Encryption of data at-rest | Yes |
| LDAP Integration | No |
Database-level auditing Track DDL, DML, DCL operations | No |
| Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|
Queryable encryption Run expressive queries against encrypted data without decryption | No |
Client-side field level encryption Encryption of data in-use. Data not readable by service provider | Partial Preview only and limited capabilities |
| Bring your own KMS | No Azure key vault only |
| Granular role-based access control | Partial Limited coarse-grained roles only |
| AWS VPC Peering | N/A |
| Encryption of data in-flight | Yes |
| Encryption of data at-rest | Yes |
| LDAP Integration | Yes |
Database-level auditing Track DDL, DML, DCL operations | Yes |
Support & Services
| MongoDB Atlas | Amazon DocumentDB | Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Database support delivered directly by MongoDB engineers | Yes Available with an optional support contract | No | No |
| Consulting services from engineers with multiple years of MongoDB expertise | Yes MongoDB Consulting Services | No | No |
| MongoDB Atlas | |
|---|---|
| Database support delivered directly by MongoDB engineers | Yes Available with an optional support contract |
| Consulting services from engineers with multiple years of MongoDB expertise | Yes MongoDB Consulting Services |
| Amazon DocumentDB | |
|---|---|
| Database support delivered directly by MongoDB engineers | No |
| Consulting services from engineers with multiple years of MongoDB expertise | No |
| Cosmos DB Emulation API | |
|---|---|
| Database support delivered directly by MongoDB engineers | No |
| Consulting services from engineers with multiple years of MongoDB expertise | No |
