Not understanding why I'd need mongodb over a traditional database paying dividends today
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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The fact that a lot of relational databases now offer document storage does lend credence to the idea, but at the same time you lose so much when you only have document storage
But if you’ve planned your app through and know beforehand you don’t need relational data, you can skip the overhead of a RDBMS.
At least that’s what I would say if I hadn’t been in this exact situation and it later turned out we do need relational data so we had relational documents.
Also working with MongoDB without ODM is pure pain.
Side tracking here : to me, it seems like every DB is relational, no?
What use case would a DB used and not be relational? With my minimal experience in DB, I haven't seen any other use cases than a relational DB.
Cache-like storage, private user-specific data, blobby or otherwise schemaless data. Stuff like that. But IMO it's a matter of time until you find a need to operate against this data relationally, and then you regret using document storage. I've made this mistake twice now and do not intend to make it again. I now consider document storage architecture to be a performance optimization with significant tradeoffs, and not a choice to be made by default for nearly any scenario.
My reason asking is because there are other scheme I feel are more adequate for non relational data, but this isn't my domain and I barely dabbled in that, so that's worth absolutely nothing.
But your point about the data being used later makes a lot of sense and I didn't think about that. Down the road, someone will ask you to create links to your data and if you already have a DB, then you don't have to change the whole infrastructure to accommodate that. You can create new schemes and already have a somewhat functional access to it.
Thanks for the input.
I've used it before but couldn't see the advantage over using JSONB with Postgres except change streams.
Glad I'm backed up in that jsonb solves the same problem
Exactly what I was thinking 😂
"gimme your mongodb url for me to do anything"
- random docker container or tool.
Last example where I was ... Annoyed by: unifi. Their management application demands a mongodb.
This has actually prevented me from upgrading it because my homelab hardware was one generation too old for AVX instructions, which are required now. And now hardware is going to be priced out of range for average people.
Anyway I just said fuck it and I’m using the ISP router. I’ve too much other bullshit to deal with. Fuck MongoDB
Maybe FerretDB will work.
FerretDB allows you to use MongoDB drivers seamlessly with PostgreSQL as the database backend. Use all tools, drivers, UIs, and the same query language and stay open-source.
They even have a SQLite backend now.
Oh sweet, thanks I will make a note to try this!
MongoDB the company who drives its employees to suicide?
What are you referring to?
The headline misses that they fired her after they demanded she return to the office and she begged for a bit more unpaid mental health leave.
That's fucked up
Thanks for the not-linked url. MSN is gross, too but a lot less so
Try to stay positive, think of all the software still using MongoDB that never got updated after 2016.
This is small potatoes for a company that murders it’s employees in cold blood.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT
Jesus fuckin christ that’s awful
One day I'll learn what webscale means, but it is not this day.
Turns out we were better off piping data to /dev/null
For GDPR compliance, absolutely
/dev/null ACE incoming soon. ;)
MongoDB is normally not public facing right?
It shouldn't be
How else would you be webscale?
The default configuration in 2017 was public write access, but those databases where taken over long ago.
I feel pain just by looking at it, definitely an instance of move fast break ~~things~~ bones