Couchbase vs. MongoDB™

3 reasons to choose Couchbase over MongoDB

See how Atlas and Capella compare in the DBaaS performance report

Critical MongoDB disadvantages and how Couchbase overcomes them

Challenge 1: Query complexity

Try SQL on NoSQL

MongoDB

Because MongoDB has no declarative query language, querying and processing data in applications requires complex procedural logic. This leads to poor query performance and scalability.

Couchbase

SQL++ gives developers and enterprises an expressive, powerful, and complete language for querying, transforming, and manipulating JSON data. You can develop engaging applications using a comprehensive and declarative query language on JSON documents.

Challenge 2: Lack of database joins

JOIN clause

MongoDB

Lack of effective document JOIN in sharded collections can impose technical restrictions on the data model design. This results in unnecessary denormalization, data duplication, and complex application logic.

Couchbase

Full support for ANSI joins allows developers to leverage the best of SQL for enterprise applications. You get comprehensive support for document JOINS and aggregation pushdown.

Challenge 3: Difficult migration from RDBMS

Migrating from relational databases

MongoDB

MongoDB's proprietary query API results in a high learning curve for SQL developers and forces expensive rewrites of existing applications.

Couchbase

SQL++ extends industry standard SQL to JSON. You can query JSON document data models similarly to the way you query legacy RDBMS applications.

Couchbase extends ANSI SQL to support the
flexible schema of JSON

MongoDB Query Couchbase SQL++
    
 db.stocks.aggregate([ 
                { “$match”: { 
                   “$and”: [ 
                    {“symbol”: {
                    “$in”: 
                     [ “AAPL”,
                        “GOOG”]}},
                         { “value”:
                        { “$gt”: 0 }}]}}, 
                { “$group”: { 
                            “_id”: {
                             “symbol”: “$symbol” },
                              “sum(value * volume)”: {
                                “$sum”: { 
                                 “$multiply”: [
                                    “$value”, 
                                      “$volume”]}}}}, 
                { “$project”: {
                             “_id”: 0,
                              “sum(value * volume)”: 
                              “$sum(value * volume)”, 
                              “symbol”: “$_id.symbol”}} 
                {“$sort”: { 
                              “sum(value * volume)”:
                              -1, “symbol”: 1 }}]}
                                    
                            
SELECT SUM(value * volume) AS val, symbol
FROM   db.stocks
WHERE  symbol IN ( "AAPL", "GOOG" ) AND value > 0
GROUP  BY symbol
ORDER  BY val DESC, symbol ASC
                

Webcasts: How to Uplevel From MongoDB™ for Better Scalability, Performance, and Architecture

Register Now

Why enterprises choose Couchbase over MongoDB

DirectTV

Today's viewers demand seamless experiences and constant innovation. Finding MongoDB difficult to use and scale, DirecTV chose Couchbase for unparalleled performance at scale, bidirectional cross datacenter replication to keep services available for viewers 24/7, and SQL++ for powerful queries.

Learn more
Viber

Pushed to scale at a rate its MongoDB and Redis backend could no longer support, Viber switched its messaging platform to Couchbase. With Couchbase, Viber cut its servers by more than 50%, is robust enough to avoid downtime, and now supports close to a million operations per second and datasets with billions of records.

Learn more
Nuance

Nuance, a speech recognition and imaging software company, had a monolithic all-Oracle environment that was expensive to scale and inflexible for varied data types. As it explored NoSQL, Nuance found MongoDB hard to manage. It chose Couchbase instead for easy, cost-effective performance at scale and bidirectional replication.

Learn more
Staples

Staples needed to better manage B2B catalogs using 1.6 billion rules applied in real time. Staples tried MongoDB, but its inability to scale easily and affordably led to canceled projects. Couchbase not only enabled Staples to simplify its catalog management using SQL++ and JSON, but also improved database performance and reliability.

Learn more

Compare Capella database services

Compare Couchbase Capella™ with other cloud Database-as-a-Service providers like MongoDB’s™ Atlas cloud service and Amazon’s DynamoDB database service. Find out why Couchbase Capella is the best solution for you.