DBMS > Couchbase vs. MongoDB vs. Realm

System Properties Comparison Couchbase vs. MongoDB vs. Realm

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A distributed document store with a powerful search engine and in-built operational and analytical capabilities

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

A DBMS built for use on mobile devices that’s a fast, easy to use alternative to SQLite and Core Data

Primary database model

Document store

Secondary database models

Key-value store

originating from the former Membase product and supporting the Memcached protocol
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

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

Score	25.34
Rank	#31	Overall
	#5	Document stores

Score	425.36
Rank	#5	Overall
	#1	Document stores

Score	8.33
Rank	#54	Overall
	#10	Document stores

Website

www.couchbase.com

www.mongodb.com

realm.io

Technical documentation

docs.couchbase.com

docs.mongodb.com/manual

realm.io/docs

Developer

Couchbase, Inc.

MongoDB, Inc

Realm, acquired by MongoDB in May 2019

Initial release

2011

2009

2014

Current release

Server: 7.0, July 2021; Mobile: 3, February 2022; Couchbase Capella, October 2021

6.0.5, March 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache version 2; Commercial licenses also available

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

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.

ScaleGrid for MongoDB Database: Fully managed hosting for MongoDB Database on a wide variety of cloud providers and On-Premises. Automate your management, scaling and backups through one centralized platform.
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

C, C++, Go and Erlang

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

Android
Backend: server-less
iOS
Windows

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.

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

String, Boolean, Number

yes

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

yes

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

SQL

Support of SQL

Declarative query language (N1QL) that extends ANSI SQL to JSON. First commercial implementation of SQL++.

Read-only SQL queries via the MongoDB Connector for BI

APIs and other access methods

Native language bindings for CRUD, Query, Search and Analytics APIs

proprietary protocol using JSON

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
Go
Java
JavaScript

Node.js
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala

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
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

.Net
Java

with Android only
Objective-C
React Native
Swift

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

Functions and timers in JavaScript

JavaScript

runs within the applications so server-side scripts are unnecessary

Triggers

yes

via the TAP protocol

yes

in MongoDB Atlas only

yes

Change Listeners

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

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.

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

including cross data center replication
Source-replica replication

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

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

selectable on a per-operation basis

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

can be individually decided for each write operation

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

typically not used, however similar functionality with DBRef possible

Transaction concepts

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

ACID

Multi-document ACID Transactions with snapshot isolation

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

optional, enabled by default

yes

In-memory capabilities

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

yes

Ephemeral buckets

yes

In-memory storage engine introduced with MongoDB version 3.2

yes

In-Memory realm

User concepts

Access control

User and Administrator separation with password-based and LDAP integrated Authentication

Access rights for users and roles

yes

More information provided by the system vendor

Specific characteristics

MongoDB provides an integrated suite of cloud database and data services to accelerate...
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Competitive advantages

Built around the flexible document data model and unified API, MongoDB is a developer...
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Typical application scenarios

Internet of Things and Time Series (Bosch, GE Healthcare, Jaguar Land Rover) Mobile...
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Key customers

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

Market metrics

365+ million downloads, over 150,000+ Atlas clusters provisioned every month handling...
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Licensing and pricing models

MongoDB database server: Server-Side Public License (SSPL) . Commercial licenses...
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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.