DBMS > AlaSQL vs. CouchDB vs. MongoDB vs. PouchDB vs. Weaviate

System Properties Comparison AlaSQL vs. CouchDB vs. MongoDB vs. PouchDB vs. Weaviate

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

JavaScript DBMS library

A native JSON - document store inspired by Lotus Notes, scalable from globally distributed server-clusters down to mobile phones.

One of the most popular document stores available both as a fully managed cloud service and for deployment on self-managed infrastructure

JavaScript DBMS with an API inspired by CouchDB

An AI-native realtime vector database engine that integrates scalable machine learning models.

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Document store

Vector DBMS

Secondary database models

Spatial DBMS

using the Geocouch extension

Spatial DBMS
Search engine

integrated Lucene index, currently in MongoDB Atlas only.
Time Series DBMS

Time Series Collections introduced in Release 5.0
Vector DBMS

currently available in the MongoDB Atlas cloud service only

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	0.51
Rank	#256	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#118	Relational DBMS

Score	8.30
Rank	#47	Overall
	#7	Document stores

Score	421.08
Rank	#5	Overall
	#1	Document stores

Score	2.34
Rank	#112	Overall
	#21	Document stores

Score	1.52
Rank	#153	Overall
	#5	Vector DBMS

Website

github.com/weaviate/weaviate
weaviate.io

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

docs.couchdb.org/en/stable

www.mongodb.com/docs/manual

pouchdb.com/guides

weaviate.io/developers/weaviate

Developer

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Apache Software Foundation

Apache top-level project, originally developed by Damien Katz, a former Lotus Notes developer

MongoDB, Inc

Apache Software Foundation

Weaviate B.V.

Initial release

2014

2005

2009

2012

2019

Current release

3.3.3, December 2023

6.0.7, June 2023

7.1.1, June 2019

1.19, May 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

MIT-License

Open Source

Apache version 2

Open Source

MongoDB Inc.'s Server Side Public License v1. Prior versions were published under GNU AGPL v3.0. Commercial licenses are also available.

Open Source

commercial license available with Weaviate Enterprise

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

MongoDB available as DBaaS (MongoDB Atlas)

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

MongoDB Flex @ STACKIT offers managed MongoDB Instances with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.
MongoDB Atlas: Global multi-cloud database with unmatched data distribution and mobility across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, built-in automation for resource and workload optimization, and so much more.

Implementation language

JavaScript

Erlang

C++

JavaScript

Server operating systems

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

Android
BSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

Data scheme

schema-free

Although schema-free, documents of the same collection often follow the same structure. Optionally impose all or part of a schema by defining a JSON schema.

schema-free

yes, maps to GraphQL interface

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

string, integer, double, decimal, boolean, date, object_id, geospatial

yes

string, int, float, geo point, date, cross reference, fuzzy references

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

Secondary indexes

yes

via views

yes

via views

yes

all data objects are indexed in a semantic vector space (the Contextionary), all primitive fields are indexed

SQL

Support of SQL

Close to SQL99, but no user access control, stored procedures and host language bindings.

Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Atlas SQL Interface

GraphQL is used as query language

APIs and other access methods

JavaScript API

RESTful HTTP/JSON API

GraphQL
HTTP REST
Prisma
proprietary protocol using JSON

HTTP REST

only for PouchDB Server
JavaScript API

GraphQL query language
RESTful HTTP/JSON API

Supported programming languages

JavaScript

C
C#
ColdFusion
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Lua
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
PL/SQL
Python
Ruby
Smalltalk

Actionscript

unofficial driver
C
C#
C++
Clojure

unofficial driver
ColdFusion

unofficial driver
D

unofficial driver
Dart

unofficial driver
Delphi

unofficial driver
Erlang
Go
Groovy

unofficial driver
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Lisp

unofficial driver
Lua

unofficial driver
MatLab

unofficial driver
Perl
PHP
PowerShell

unofficial driver
Prolog

unofficial driver
Python
R

unofficial driver
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Smalltalk

unofficial driver
Swift

JavaScript

JavaScript / TypeScript
Python

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

View functions in JavaScript

JavaScript

View functions in JavaScript

Triggers

yes

in MongoDB Atlas only

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

Sharding

improved architecture with release 2.0

Sharding

Partitioned by hashed, ranged, or zoned sharding keys. Live resharding allows users to change their shard keys as an online operation with zero downtime.

Sharding

with a proxy-based framework, named couchdb-lounge

Sharding

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-Source deployments with MongoDB Atlas Global Clusters
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication

also with CouchDB databases
Source-replica replication

also with CouchDB databases

yes

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Eventual Consistency

can be individually decided for each read operation
Immediate Consistency

default behaviour

Eventual Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

typically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possible

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

atomic operations within a single document possible

Multi-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolation

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

strategy: optimistic locking

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

yes

optional, enabled by default

yes

by using IndexedDB, WebSQL or LevelDB as backend

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

In-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2

yes

User concepts

Access control

Access rights for users can be defined per database

Access rights for users and roles

API Keys
OpenID Connect Discovery

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
» more

Weaviate is an open source vector database that is robust, scalable, cloud-native,...
» more

Competitive advantages

Built around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
» more

Flexible deployment - Free, open source or fully-managed cloud vector database service...
» more

Typical application scenarios

AI-enriched intelligent apps (Continental, Telefonica, Iron Mountain) Internet of...
» more

As a database supporting the development of generative AI and semantic search applications...
» more

Key customers

ADP, Adobe, Amadeus, AstraZeneca, Auto Trader, Barclays, BBVA, Bosch, Cisco, CERN,...
» more

All companies that have data.
» more

Market metrics

Hundreds of millions downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month...
» more

As of mid 2023: Over 2 million open source downloads 3500+ Weaviate Slack community...
» more

Licensing and pricing models

MongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
» more

Weaviate is open-source, and free to use. Weaviate is also available as a fully managed...
» more

We invite representatives of system vendors to contact us for updating and extending the system information,
and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.