In this topic, we are going to learn the pros and cons of MongoDB and we will also learn or compare the pros and cons of MongoDB with other databases. These are some of the topics that we are going to cover
- What are the key features of MongoDB
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs SQL
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs MySQL
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs DynamoDB
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs Cassandra
What are the key features of MongoDB
MongoDB is an open-source document-oriented database that is developed by Mongo.Inc. It is designed to store large data sets. It is also known as a NoSQL database.
If you want to read more about MongoDB, you can read the following article What is MongoDB?
Features of MongoDB:-
- Document Oriented: In MongoDB, data is stored in the key-value pairs instead of rows and columns and each document have there own object ID which make data more flexible, easy to use or understand.
- Scalability: With the help of sharding, MongoDB provides horizontal scalability. Sharding mean, divide the data into multiple servers.
- Better data availability: MongoDB provides horizonatal scalability and due to some reason data may got deleted then it provides the facility of backup and restore. This is the great way to increase data availability and stability.
- Replication: Replication is also provides the facililty of load balancing. Like multiple user using same data at a time, with the help of replication the load can be distributed in all the users.
- Indexing: MongoDB provides the indexing facility you can index any field in the document. This makes easier to find in less time when we have lots of data.
- Support ad-hoc queries: In MongoDB, with the help of ad-hoc queries you can update it on real time. these are some of the queries that support by MongoDB field queries, range queries, and regular expression searches.
What are the pros and cons of MongoDB
Now that we have seen the key features of MongoDB, let’s see the pros and cons of MongoDB.
Pros of MongoDB
- Flexible: MongoDB is a schema-less database. So,we can store any type of data in different document. So, this gives us the flexibility to store any data type.
- High Speed: MongoDB speed is faster then relational database because it is a document oriented database. It is also provides fast query response.
- Full Technical Support: If you have any problem you can directly reach to MongoDB client supoort system. MongoDb.Inc provides support to all the clients.
- Simplicity: MongoDB queries are easy to understand as compare to SQL. The queries of MongoDB are so simple anyone can easily understand.
- Sharding: For handling the large dataset MongoDB use sharding. When server can not handle due to large data size then with the help of sharding, we divide the data and distributed it into multiple servers without stoping the activity.
Cons of MongoDB
Despite having so many advantages, there is always the chance of an update. Nothing is fully complete or perfect.
There are some limitations of MongoDB, let’s get into it:
- Joins: In MongoDB, It is very hard task to join documents. Users can use join functionality manually adding code but it takes lots of time.
- High Memory Usage: In MongoDb , There is a data repeation which takes lots of unneessary space in memory. So MangoDB require a large amount of storage.
- Duplicate: This duplication of data in MongoDB is the major limitation and due to this reason, Some time its very hard to handle data sets.
- Indexing: MongoDB provides High-speed performance with right index. In case if there is any problem while using indexing then MongoDB works very slow.
- Limited Data Size: In MongoDB limited data size is 16MB only not more than this.
Read: How to install MongoDB
What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs SQL
What is SQL?
SQL stands for “Structured Query Language”. In 1986, SQL become a standard of the ANSI (American National Standards Institute). It is used in relational database systems like MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, MSAccess here SQL is the standard database.
We can do these things in the SQL:
- Create new database
- Create new tables
- Retrieve the data
- insert the data
- update the data
- delete the record
- set the permission on table and views
Now, we are going to learn the comparative differences (pros and cons) B/W MongoDB and SQL database:
| Keys | SQL Database | NoSQL Database |
|---|---|---|
| Data Storage Model | In SQL, tables are created with fixed rows and columns | In NoSQL, tables with rows and dynamic assign columns, Key-value pair, JSON documents |
| History | It was developed in the 1970s | It was developed in the late 2000s |
| Schemas | It is rigid | It is Flexible |
| Joins | Required | Not required |
| Scaling | It is scale-up vertically | It is scale-out horizontally |
Read: How to create new database in MongoDB
What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs MySQL
What is MySQL?
MySQL is a relational database Management system(RDBMS). It is based on SQL that we already discuss in the previous topic. You can read more about SQL from there.
In this, we use tables for storing the data in the database. As we already know that it is based on SQL so we use the same commands SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT and DELETE to access and transfer the data.
Now, we are going to learn the comparative differences (pros and cons) B/W MongoDB and MySQL database:
| Keys | MySQL | MongoDB |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | It is a relational database. | It is a Non-relational database. |
| Issuer | It is issued by Oracle. | It is issued by MongoDb Inc. |
| Speed | It is slower than MongoDB | It provides a faster query response that speeds up the development process. And it is faster than MySQL. |
| Ideal for | It is used in those who are using structure data like Accounting firms and banks. Twitter is also using this. | It is used for big data, real-time data, social networking basically for those who are continuously changing their schema. |
| Data Storage | In MySQL, we store the data in rows and columns form. | In MongoDB, we store the data in JSON (Javascript object notation) form. |
Read: MongoDB backup and restore
What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs DynamoDB
What is DynamoDB?
DynamoDB is a key-value and document database that is also called the Amazon DynamoDB database. It is based on the principle of Dynamo and a progenitor of NoSQL. It uses hashing and B-tree to manage the data.
These are some of the features provided by the DynamoDB:
- High availability
- Reliability
- Incremental Scalability
- Built-in security
- Backup and restore
Now, we are going to learn the comparative differences (pros and cons) B/W MongoDB and DynamoDB database:
| Key | DynamoDB | MongoDB |
|---|---|---|
| Data Model | In this, we store a Maximum of 400KB record size. Data type support(number, string, binary) | In this, we store JSON data type (int, long, date, etc.) up to16MB document size. |
| Programming Scripts | DynamoDB supports fewer programming languages. It follows Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Swift, PHP, Python. | MongoDB supports various programming languages and it follows C, C++, Java, Javascript, Go, and many more programming languages. |
| Security | DynamoDB is provided by AWS so in the security measure it gives us high-level security. | MongoDB is not good at the security level because at the installation time by default authentication is off which is not a good idea. |
| Backup | DynamoDB doesn’t provide any backup and restore. If you want to use it then you have to give the additional charges. | MongoDB Atlas provides continuous backup and restores at a very lower price. |
| Run anywhere | It is only available on AWS. | MongoDB database as a service, we can deploy on AWS, GCP, and Azure. |
Read: How does MongoDB create collection
What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs Cassandra
What is Cassandra?
It is an open-source, NoSQL database management system provided by Apache Cassandra. It is written in Java in 2008.
With the help of Cassandra, we can handle a large amount of data and can do real-time analysis. It is also known for its high availability and scalability
Various companies are using Cassandra like Digg, IBM, Instagram, Spotify, Netflix, and many more.
Now, we are going to learn the comparative differences (pros and cons) B/W MongoDB and Cassandra database:
| Key | Cassandra | MongoDB |
|---|---|---|
| Store Data | Cassandra uses columns and tables to store data. | In MongoDB, we use JSON documents to store data. |
| Availability | Cassandra provides high availability. | MongoDB provides limited availability. |
| Support Components | Cassandra provides these components cluster, commit log, memory table, and many more. | MongoDB provides ad-hoc queries, aggregation, file storage, load balancing, and many more. |
| Architecture | Cassandra works on a distributed architecture. | MongoDB works on master-slave architecture. |
| Indexes | Cassandra does not completely support secondary indexes. | MongoDB depends on indexes for fetching data. |
You may also like reading the following articles.
- MongoDB shutting down with code 100
- Create tables in MongoDB
- MongoDB find string contains
- MongoDB sort by field
- MongoDB sort by date
- MongoDB failed to connect
So in this tutorial, we have covered and learned about the “Pros and cons of MongoDB” and we also covered the key features of MongoDB. After that, we compare the MongoDB database to different databases like SQL, MySQL, DynamoDB, and Cassandra.
We have covered the following topics :
- What are the key features of MongoDB
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs SQL
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs MySQL
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs DynamoDB
- What are the pros and cons of MongoDB vs Cassandra
I am Bijay having more than 15 years of experience in the Software Industry. During this time, I have worked on MariaDB and used it in a lot of projects. Most of our readers are from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
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