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I'm working on an open source firebase-like database that puts realtime/sync/replication/master-master/p2p at its core, rather than an after thought which a lot

I'm working on an open source firebase-like database that puts realtime/sync/replication/master-master/p2p at its core, rather than an after thought which a lot of other databases (MySQL, MongoDB, etc.) do. The RethinkDB guys are smart and I'm glad they are pushing in this direction, it is important. My project is at http://github.com/amark/gun http://github.com/amark/gun if anybody is interested.

Lazare 12y ago
How does your project differ from CouchDB? I mean, if there's one database that puts sync, realtime change feeds, and master-master replication at its core, it's CouchDB (and Pouch, Touch, etc.). It would certainly be my first choice for doing anything "firebase-like". What does gun do (or plan to do) different/better? (I mean, nothing wrong with a project that duplicates others, but it seems odd to focus on master-master replication without distinguishing yourself from the most popular DB that's already built around that.)
- marknadal 12y ago
  Yeah, great question and good points. 1. GUN is embedded. Meaning there is no "database server/process" to run, it gets included into your app server as a library. This means less configuration and maintenance. 2. GUN is a graph database. Meaning you can have both relational and document structured data. I'm not sure if CouchDB has added this yet, last time I checked (several years ago) it was only NoSQL. 3. GUN is not stable/production ready yet, and it is javascript only currently. Which is pretty limiting as of now, but that will change later. CouchDB, Riak, Cassandra all try to be master-master, which is good. Unfortunately, in my personal experience, they have also been much more complicated to start using. I'm hoping gun will be easier to roll with. If you're already using CouchDB and happy, you probably shouldn't switch. Any other questions?
  - Lazare 12y ago
    No, that does clarify things. Being a graph database is a big difference; CouchDB is strictly document based. (Incidentally, you might want to checkout PouchDB, if you haven't already. It's a javascript implementation of CouchDB, and it runs quite well on Node, and can use LevelDB or any LevelDOWN compatible datastore, which makes it pretty useful as a lightweight embedded DB. Again though, documents only.)

Lazare 12y ago

How does your project differ from CouchDB? I mean, if there's one database that puts sync, realtime change feeds, and master-master replication at its core, it's CouchDB (and Pouch, Touch, etc.). It would certainly be my first choice for doing anything "firebase-like". What does gun do (or plan to do) different/better? (I mean, nothing wrong with a project that duplicates others, but it seems odd to focus on master-master replication without distinguishing yourself from the most popular DB that's already built around that.)

marknadal 12y ago
Yeah, great question and good points. 1. GUN is embedded. Meaning there is no "database server/process" to run, it gets included into your app server as a library. This means less configuration and maintenance. 2. GUN is a graph database. Meaning you can have both relational and document structured data. I'm not sure if CouchDB has added this yet, last time I checked (several years ago) it was only NoSQL. 3. GUN is not stable/production ready yet, and it is javascript only currently. Which is pretty limiting as of now, but that will change later. CouchDB, Riak, Cassandra all try to be master-master, which is good. Unfortunately, in my personal experience, they have also been much more complicated to start using. I'm hoping gun will be easier to roll with. If you're already using CouchDB and happy, you probably shouldn't switch. Any other questions?
- Lazare 12y ago
  No, that does clarify things. Being a graph database is a big difference; CouchDB is strictly document based. (Incidentally, you might want to checkout PouchDB, if you haven't already. It's a javascript implementation of CouchDB, and it runs quite well on Node, and can use LevelDB or any LevelDOWN compatible datastore, which makes it pretty useful as a lightweight embedded DB. Again though, documents only.)