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At this point why would you use CouchDB over something like MongoDB? Seriously asking... Over the past 5 years MongoDB has gotten a great storage engine, tran

by tbrock 7y ago

At this point why would you use CouchDB over something like MongoDB? Seriously asking... Over the past 5 years MongoDB has gotten a great storage engine, transactions, distributed transactions, multi master replication, first class change streams and is very very solid as a foundational piece of infrastructure you can rely on while CouchDB has languished. I can’t imagine reaching for it in my tool belt when I need a document store over MongoDB but I’m obviously biased so I’m wondering if there is a lot I’m missing. Obviously it’s cool from a more open source databases standpoint — I love learning about how things are built and evolve over time.

newfeatureok 7y ago
The main reason most people use CouchDB is because of the HTTP API and offline support with Couchbase Mobile and PouchDB. Doesn't CouchDB have most of those things already from 2.3?
- mauflows 7y ago
  I don't think couchbase has couchdb in mind for the mobile client anymore
  - Volundr 7y ago
    Correct. The newest version of CouchBase mobile no longer supports CouchDB as a replication target. It can still be accomplish with the CouchBase Sync Gateway, but get complicated quickly.
    - jamil7 7y ago
      I evaluated Couchbase mobile about a year ago and found although it worked well once setup there was a lot of overhead and the docs seemed a little all over the place and the fact that you can't also use the same DB on the web anymore with PouchDB meant I ultimately dropped it. It's a shame because there isn't really anything open source / self hosted like it for mobile.
- jinjin2 7y ago
  MongoDB recently bought Realm which is an amazing mobile database with first class replication, so if I was starting a new project that also needs mobile I would definitely go with MongoDB.
  - janl 7y ago
    last time I looked, realm did “last write wins” “conflict resolution”, which is just marketing speech for “randomly losing customer data”, which is something CouchDB decidedly works very hard to never ever do ;)
  - rdslw 7y ago
    Especially if you, jinjin2, are either a bot, or marketing shim?? I just verified every single post of you on hackers news in last 12 months, and every one, in different DB discussions are doing the some shamefull plug about Realm. E v e r y o n e. And not a single disclaimer from you, not to mention some of your posts (like here, what janl pointed) are simply not true. Disgracefull. I'm leaving this comment for anybody in the future doing check on you to notice this.
liamdiprose 7y ago
The link explains that CouchDB can have replicas on mobile phones and websites, meaning clients don't always have to be connected to the internet. > The Couch Replication Protocol lets your data flow seamlessly between server clusters to mobile phones and web browsers, enabling a compelling offline-first user-experience
speedgoose 7y ago
Does MongoDB have multi master replication or the classic election of one master from a pool of candidates ? CouchDB has another pattern, each master is really a master and you can have live replication but also offline replication. You can connect two clusters every new moon and they will synchronize. For sure the clients may have to deal with potential conflicts but in practice it's very neat and that's what makes couchdb worth it if you need this feature.
- Graphguy 7y ago
  MongoDB does replica sets and sharding. As far as I know it doesn't support multi-master architectures or data syncing. Even the Atlas-style global data distribution is sharding, right?
almery 7y ago
CouchDB is licensed under Apache License 2.0, while MongoDB uses SSPL, which was rejected by the OSI https://www.zdnet.com/article/mongodb-open-source-server-side-public-license-rejected/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/mongodb-open-source-server-sid...
pritambaral 7y ago
1. MongoDB is no longer Open Source. 2. MongoDB's design has historically been terrible; and, from my current experience with clients, is still a source of 'WTF's.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Quarrelsome 7y ago
MongoDB has _suspiciously_ amazing SEO and marketing. CouchDB's by contrast is awful. As silly as that sounds as a reason to choose CouchDB it demonstrates where the respective company's priorities lie.
- dumbfounder 7y ago
  MongoDB is a an actual for-profit company, so of course it has marketing. CouchDB is an open source apache project. You are comparing apples to oranges.
  - Quarrelsome 7y ago
    Its not just CouchDB, I did a lot of searching a little while back and I generally just don't like how tightly they've wrapped up almost all of the results. If you go by searching alone its overwhelmingly MongoDB positive to such an extent that its hard to believe its organic. It's definitely impressive marketing but when I'm deciding on which tool to use that arguably works against them as opposed to for them.
    - dumbfounder 7y ago
      How tightly they wrapped up the results? Perhaps you could give examples?
    - z3t4 7y ago
      So you are choosing software on it's technical merit and not just on popularity and hype!? What if there are no breaking changes every third month, what are you gonna do? Solve actual problems!? :P
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - dumbfounder 7y ago
        It sounds to me like they are choosing their software based off their marketing techniques.
freeqaz 7y ago
They are tools that solve different problems, imo. In CAP theorem[0] you have 3 groups of DBs. CA databases: SQL databases that are hard to scale ("partition") but are always consistent and available. CP databases: MongoDB style databases that are consistent and partition tolerant, but trade availability (sometimes your queries will fail during high load). AP databases: CouchDB style databases. They are always available and are partition tolerant, but you may be querying stale data. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem?wprov=sfla1
janl 7y ago
> At this point why would you use CouchDB over something like MongoDB? They are very different databases. But since they have come up are around the same time and because they look very similar on the surface, you might think you chose between them. But when you look more closely at detail decisions on the technical details, at almost every point, where CouchDB goes one way, Mongo went the other way. I’m not saying either decisions are better or worse, it’s just that they are very different database that you should evaluate on their merits, not just superficially.

by tbrock 7y ago

newfeatureok 7y ago

The main reason most people use CouchDB is because of the HTTP API and offline support with Couchbase Mobile and PouchDB. Doesn't CouchDB have most of those things already from 2.3?

mauflows 7y ago
I don't think couchbase has couchdb in mind for the mobile client anymore
- Volundr 7y ago
  Correct. The newest version of CouchBase mobile no longer supports CouchDB as a replication target. It can still be accomplish with the CouchBase Sync Gateway, but get complicated quickly.
  - jamil7 7y ago
    I evaluated Couchbase mobile about a year ago and found although it worked well once setup there was a lot of overhead and the docs seemed a little all over the place and the fact that you can't also use the same DB on the web anymore with PouchDB meant I ultimately dropped it. It's a shame because there isn't really anything open source / self hosted like it for mobile.
jinjin2 7y ago
MongoDB recently bought Realm which is an amazing mobile database with first class replication, so if I was starting a new project that also needs mobile I would definitely go with MongoDB.
- janl 7y ago
  last time I looked, realm did “last write wins” “conflict resolution”, which is just marketing speech for “randomly losing customer data”, which is something CouchDB decidedly works very hard to never ever do ;)
- rdslw 7y ago
  Especially if you, jinjin2, are either a bot, or marketing shim?? I just verified every single post of you on hackers news in last 12 months, and every one, in different DB discussions are doing the some shamefull plug about Realm. E v e r y o n e. And not a single disclaimer from you, not to mention some of your posts (like here, what janl pointed) are simply not true. Disgracefull. I'm leaving this comment for anybody in the future doing check on you to notice this.

liamdiprose 7y ago

The link explains that CouchDB can have replicas on mobile phones and websites, meaning clients don't always have to be connected to the internet. > The Couch Replication Protocol lets your data flow seamlessly between server clusters to mobile phones and web browsers, enabling a compelling offline-first user-experience

speedgoose 7y ago

Does MongoDB have multi master replication or the classic election of one master from a pool of candidates ? CouchDB has another pattern, each master is really a master and you can have live replication but also offline replication. You can connect two clusters every new moon and they will synchronize. For sure the clients may have to deal with potential conflicts but in practice it's very neat and that's what makes couchdb worth it if you need this feature.

Graphguy 7y ago
MongoDB does replica sets and sharding. As far as I know it doesn't support multi-master architectures or data syncing. Even the Atlas-style global data distribution is sharding, right?

almery 7y ago

CouchDB is licensed under Apache License 2.0, while MongoDB uses SSPL, which was rejected by the OSI https://www.zdnet.com/article/mongodb-open-source-server-side-public-license-rejected/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/mongodb-open-source-server-sid...

pritambaral 7y ago

1. MongoDB is no longer Open Source. 2. MongoDB's design has historically been terrible; and, from my current experience with clients, is still a source of 'WTF's.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Quarrelsome 7y ago

MongoDB has _suspiciously_ amazing SEO and marketing. CouchDB's by contrast is awful. As silly as that sounds as a reason to choose CouchDB it demonstrates where the respective company's priorities lie.

dumbfounder 7y ago
MongoDB is a an actual for-profit company, so of course it has marketing. CouchDB is an open source apache project. You are comparing apples to oranges.
- Quarrelsome 7y ago
  Its not just CouchDB, I did a lot of searching a little while back and I generally just don't like how tightly they've wrapped up almost all of the results. If you go by searching alone its overwhelmingly MongoDB positive to such an extent that its hard to believe its organic. It's definitely impressive marketing but when I'm deciding on which tool to use that arguably works against them as opposed to for them.
  - dumbfounder 7y ago
    How tightly they wrapped up the results? Perhaps you could give examples?
  - z3t4 7y ago
    So you are choosing software on it's technical merit and not just on popularity and hype!? What if there are no breaking changes every third month, what are you gonna do? Solve actual problems!? :P
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - dumbfounder 7y ago
      It sounds to me like they are choosing their software based off their marketing techniques.

freeqaz 7y ago

They are tools that solve different problems, imo. In CAP theorem[0] you have 3 groups of DBs. CA databases: SQL databases that are hard to scale ("partition") but are always consistent and available. CP databases: MongoDB style databases that are consistent and partition tolerant, but trade availability (sometimes your queries will fail during high load). AP databases: CouchDB style databases. They are always available and are partition tolerant, but you may be querying stale data. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem?wprov=sfla1

janl 7y ago

> At this point why would you use CouchDB over something like MongoDB? They are very different databases. But since they have come up are around the same time and because they look very similar on the surface, you might think you chose between them. But when you look more closely at detail decisions on the technical details, at almost every point, where CouchDB goes one way, Mongo went the other way. I’m not saying either decisions are better or worse, it’s just that they are very different database that you should evaluate on their merits, not just superficially.