Couchbase N1QL query really slow

SQL++
2

What you read is incorrect. It is not true that NoSQL is faster than SQL, just as it is not true that SQL is faster than NoSQL.

What are you trying to accomplish? You can try the following query in Couchbase:

SELECT *
FROM default
LIMIT 1;

Should be fast.

If you want to use a WHERE clause, you need an index. That is how Couchbase works.