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This is a dead horse that's been beaten to death over and over again here on HN. MongoDB is garbage. MongoDB doesn't scale. MongoDB is $h!t says HN users. It j

This is a dead horse that's been beaten to death over and over again here on HN. MongoDB is garbage. MongoDB doesn't scale. MongoDB is $h!t says HN users. It just feels like an echo chamber. Are you running the latest version of MongoDB in a replica set with journaling enabled and write concern set to one? MongoDB has worked great for my uses, up to moderate write/read scale. Sure, if you are running "big data" or enterprise things, it might not be the best choice, but it's not the steaming pile of horse excrement that some HN users try to make it. Second, for those who still insist that MongoDB is crap, what is the best pure document store database then? I used to champion RethinkDB, but they failed and development has basically stopped. You wouldn't build a business on RethinkDB now a days unfortunately.

AznHisoka 8y ago
"Are you running the latest version of MongoDB?" I don't use MongoDB, but I imagine the answer to that question for most people is: No, because I already have an existing product in production with actual customers, and I can't afford to upgrade to the latest version.
- nodesocket 8y ago
  With a replica set you should be able to do the update with zero or little downtime with some planning. Of course you'll have to look and watch for breaking changes if you running a really old version.
  - AznHisoka 8y ago
    It's not just the downtime. It's the actual work involved in running all your regressions to ensure backward compatability. ie. do all your existing queries still work? do all your current backup processes still work? did that arcane config variable you rely on change its stinking name?
    - enraged_camel 8y ago
      I was going to respond with “well, any database that can’t guarantee that kind of backwards compatibility shouldn’t be taken seriously,” but then I realized we are talking about MongoDB and I found myself giggling.
metildaa 8y ago
Modern Mongo still seems to corrupt itself on the Unifi Cloud Controller I have to deal with if there is no disk space left or hard power off. Postgres will be usable after disk space is freed, or when booted back up. This is a really basic reliability issue.
- nodesocket 8y ago
  I'm going to go out on a limb and say Unifi Cloud Controller is not running the latest version and does not have journaling enabled.
  - justinclift 8y ago
    > is not running the latest version MongoDB's not still in early prototype phase or similar is it? Basic reliability shouldn't really need the latest version any more, a few years in. :)
    - foldr 8y ago
      nodesocket said the latest version of Unifi Cloud Controller, not the latest version of MonogDB.
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  OT: Ubiquiti seem to be ... not good at software and only relatively good at hardware. I'm not sure why they're as popular as they are and I'm slightly ashamed at being suckered in by Troy Hunt's marketing. Is it just a case of the rest of the home/SOHO WAP/router segment is cataclysmically bad, so they only have to be a little bit better? (The WAP is good, but not as fast as the Turris Omnia it replaced).
  - laurentdc 8y ago
    > I'm not sure why they're as popular as they are For me it's always been price. Back when we adopted them Ubiquiti UAPs were pretty much the only thing close to enterprise access points (centralized management, radius support and all that jazz) but at 1/10th of the price of Cisco/Ruckus/Aruba. I agree that they're a bit overhyped: we have 200+ deployed and they are not exactly the most reliable, some devices just disappear from the controller forever, some early generation ones would just overheat and die, CLI management is non-existent. But hey for $70 a pop you can just buy a truckload of them and replace them as needed.
geggam 8y ago
why would you require the latest version of a database to not have corrupt data ? I can install 10 yr old database postgres / mysql software and not get corrupt data
- zaphirplane 8y ago
  No data corruption bugs in the last 10 years is a hard to believe. There was a story here a few days ago about incorrect use of fsync
empthought 8y ago
CREATE TABLE pure_document_store(document jsonb NOT NULL);
adw 8y ago
The best document store is probably either a filesystem or S3. Use a relational database. Postgres or MySQL. MySQL used to be heinous 20 years ago, but it's alright now. That's about how long these things take. The primary thing you want from your data storage layer is you want it to be boring. You want all of the foot-shooting to have happened to other people and to be painstakingly documented. This is what relational databases give you. Are they the most ideal thing in the world always? Heck no. Are they extremely well-understood, operationally and in terms of the performance envelope? Compared to everything else, yes. When in doubt, do the boring thing. If your data storage layer is interesting, you're a database company and you know to ignore me. Otherwise why are you spending complexity budget on something which isn't the problem you're actually trying to solve?
oblio 8y ago
The whole point of NoSQL was scaling to tons of writes. If you don't have "big data" or it can't handle it, then what's the whole real reason of existence for these things?!? :)
zepolen 8y ago
> what is the best pure document store database then? That is like asking what's the best horse species to use for transporting goods. Doesn't matter. You want a diesel truck.

AznHisoka 8y ago

"Are you running the latest version of MongoDB?" I don't use MongoDB, but I imagine the answer to that question for most people is: No, because I already have an existing product in production with actual customers, and I can't afford to upgrade to the latest version.

nodesocket 8y ago
With a replica set you should be able to do the update with zero or little downtime with some planning. Of course you'll have to look and watch for breaking changes if you running a really old version.
- AznHisoka 8y ago
  It's not just the downtime. It's the actual work involved in running all your regressions to ensure backward compatability. ie. do all your existing queries still work? do all your current backup processes still work? did that arcane config variable you rely on change its stinking name?
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    I was going to respond with “well, any database that can’t guarantee that kind of backwards compatibility shouldn’t be taken seriously,” but then I realized we are talking about MongoDB and I found myself giggling.

metildaa 8y ago

Modern Mongo still seems to corrupt itself on the Unifi Cloud Controller I have to deal with if there is no disk space left or hard power off. Postgres will be usable after disk space is freed, or when booted back up. This is a really basic reliability issue.

nodesocket 8y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Unifi Cloud Controller is not running the latest version and does not have journaling enabled.
- justinclift 8y ago
  > is not running the latest version MongoDB's not still in early prototype phase or similar is it? Basic reliability shouldn't really need the latest version any more, a few years in. :)
  - foldr 8y ago
    nodesocket said the latest version of Unifi Cloud Controller, not the latest version of MonogDB.
voltagex_ 8y ago
OT: Ubiquiti seem to be ... not good at software and only relatively good at hardware. I'm not sure why they're as popular as they are and I'm slightly ashamed at being suckered in by Troy Hunt's marketing. Is it just a case of the rest of the home/SOHO WAP/router segment is cataclysmically bad, so they only have to be a little bit better? (The WAP is good, but not as fast as the Turris Omnia it replaced).
- laurentdc 8y ago
  > I'm not sure why they're as popular as they are For me it's always been price. Back when we adopted them Ubiquiti UAPs were pretty much the only thing close to enterprise access points (centralized management, radius support and all that jazz) but at 1/10th of the price of Cisco/Ruckus/Aruba. I agree that they're a bit overhyped: we have 200+ deployed and they are not exactly the most reliable, some devices just disappear from the controller forever, some early generation ones would just overheat and die, CLI management is non-existent. But hey for $70 a pop you can just buy a truckload of them and replace them as needed.

geggam 8y ago

why would you require the latest version of a database to not have corrupt data ? I can install 10 yr old database postgres / mysql software and not get corrupt data

zaphirplane 8y ago
No data corruption bugs in the last 10 years is a hard to believe. There was a story here a few days ago about incorrect use of fsync

empthought 8y ago

CREATE TABLE pure_document_store(document jsonb NOT NULL);

adw 8y ago

The best document store is probably either a filesystem or S3. Use a relational database. Postgres or MySQL. MySQL used to be heinous 20 years ago, but it's alright now. That's about how long these things take. The primary thing you want from your data storage layer is you want it to be boring. You want all of the foot-shooting to have happened to other people and to be painstakingly documented. This is what relational databases give you. Are they the most ideal thing in the world always? Heck no. Are they extremely well-understood, operationally and in terms of the performance envelope? Compared to everything else, yes. When in doubt, do the boring thing. If your data storage layer is interesting, you're a database company and you know to ignore me. Otherwise why are you spending complexity budget on something which isn't the problem you're actually trying to solve?

oblio 8y ago

The whole point of NoSQL was scaling to tons of writes. If you don't have "big data" or it can't handle it, then what's the whole real reason of existence for these things?!? :)

zepolen 8y ago

> what is the best pure document store database then? That is like asking what's the best horse species to use for transporting goods. Doesn't matter. You want a diesel truck.