” because each database is the best version of its particular database format. The object part of PostgreSQL relates to the many extensions that enable it to include other data types such as JSON data objects, key/value stores, and XML. In PostgreSQL, the approach to scaling depends on whether you are talking about writing or reading data. For writes, it is based on a scale-up architecture, in which a single primary machine running PostgreSQL must be made as powerful as possible in order to scale.

  • Below, we compare NoSQL document-oriented databases like MongoDB with Postgres’ relational/document database capabilities.
  • It’s performed by adding more hardware resources like disks, CPUs, and memory to an existing database node.
  • MongoDB Atlas runs in the same way across all three major cloud providers, simplifying migration and multi-cloud deployment.
  • While PostgreSQL uses the GROUP_BY function to process and run aggregate queries MongoDB typically uses aggregation pipelines to process its queries.
  • PostgreSQL achieves this via multiple indexing and concurrency strategies.
  • As PostgreSQL is free and open-source, anyone can use all its features for free.
  • ” because each database is the best version of its particular database format.

Below, we compare NoSQL document-oriented databases like MongoDB with Postgres’ relational/document database capabilities. The nature of your data and your target use cases are also vitally important. Those with a large ecosystem of SQL skills and tools and numerous existing applications may choose to continue using a relational data model. PostgreSQL can support replication but more advanced features such as automatic failover must be supported by third-party products developed independently of the database. Such an approach is more complex and can work slower and less seamlessly than MongoDB’s in-built self-healing capabilities. When an application goes live, PostgreSQL users must be ready to fight a battle about scalability.

Summary of differences: MongoDB vs. PostgreSQL

Today, from the transaction perspective, MongoDB is as solid as Postgres. In 2018, folks at The Guardian wrote a lengthy post about migrating MongoDB to Postgres. A lot of things have changed since then, but one thing still holds true, it’s always painful to migrate a database. The 2023 Stack Overflow survey shows that Postgres has become the most admired, desired database. As PostgreSQL is free and open-source, anyone can use all its features for free. MongoDB also offers an On-Premise pricing model with MongoDB Enterprise Advanced edition.

postgres nosql vs mongodb

It also creates a new revision ID for the document, which allows multiple documents with the same data to exist simultaneously. On the other hand, while PostgreSQL is easy to install and is adaptable to almost all platforms, its efficiency may differ from platform to platform. Moreover, it doesn’t have revising tools or reporting instruments that could show the current condition of the database. You may have to check the database continuously if something doesn’t go as planned to avoid noticing a failure when it’s too late. Write-ahead logs enable sharing the changes made with the replica nodes, hence making asynchronous replication possible. Other kinds of replications include logical replication, streaming replication, and physical replication.

Low code vs. No code: Which is better for web and mobile app development?

For example, an e-commerce front end will work well with a SQL database such as PostgreSQL. Data can be stored using specific data types, and developers can define and categorize data. For an e-commerce store, product descriptions will always be a string of characters, and the price of a product is always a decimal number. The data is predictable and structured in a way that a PostgreSQL database can manage. Because the NoSQL MongoDB database stores data differently, developers use different syntax to search for records. Documents are given an ID at the time that they’re stored, but developers don’t have table columns or keys to consider when creating queries.

postgres nosql vs mongodb

MongoDB uses MQL, which can be used to work with documents in MongoDB and take out data while delivering the flexibility and power that SQL does. On the other hand, the data structure of MongoDB doesn’t need to be planned out in advance as it essentially deals with unstructured data. Mongo RealmDB is available free of charge to all Atlas users for evaluation and light usage, enabling developers to build and release mobile applications. However, MongoDB does have other options like the enterprise and Atlas (for the cloud), which have varying prices. An on-premise pricing model is offered for the MongoDB enterprise edition. However, the denormalization process usually causes high memory consumption when previously normalized data in a database is grouped to increase performance.

What is Zero Trust Architecture?

Actually, controls can be considered for this and there are certain dynamic schemes that bring a lot of agility. MongoDB is capable to offer validation of documents which makes it an ideal choice for a very large number of organizations all over the world. When it comes to databases, businesses always want to have something which can be trusted for the long run.

postgres nosql vs mongodb

These features make it able to work with a polyglot database environment, which means it’s good for complex industries that want to optimize their storage. A relational database such as PostgreSQL uses the common SQL syntax. Since data is stored in structured table designs, you link data across ico development company tables using primary and foreign keys. You can link dozens of tables using primary and foreign keys, but every record is stored in a structured way with rules that define columns. Because data is structured, your SQL statement will have expected results based on the type of data in each table.

NoSQL Databases:

If you need more consistent data, PostgreSQL will be worth considering. Unfortunately, LDAP and Kerberos are a MongoDB enterprise feature. Encrypting connections with industry standard TLS is supported in both products. There are a few different options for encryption at rest with PostgreSQL, but encryption at rest is an enterprise feature with MongoDB.

And thanks to its liberal license and solid architecture, for every application platform offering a hosted database service, choose Postgres. From the Heroku in the early days to the new Supabase, render, Fly.io. MongoDB can be a good choice if you want your database to be highly scalable and have a high computation & processing power. It can also be used if users lack programming skills as it is very easy to learn and does not follow the traditional SQL syntax.

Using JavaScript in the MongoDB shell

MongoDB is a document-oriented NoSQL database system that uses the MongoDB Query Language (MQL) for querying documents. MQL is designed to be more flexible and expressive than SQL, allowing for nested queries and deep filtering of document structures. MongoDB also supports aggregation pipelines, which allow for the processing of documents through a sequence of operations such as filtering, grouping, and sorting. On the other hand, MongoDB does not support foreign keys because it has no tables and operates as a document-based database.

postgres nosql vs mongodb

We felt that this compatibility offered some time savings on figuring out and implementing an extensive data formatting and processing system. MongoDB’s flexible schemas schemas (due to it being non-relational) were also attractive as a source of additional agility for our development process. The MongoDB ecosystem also has great GUI tools to simplify testing. It is a source-available cross-platform document-oriented database program that uses JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)-like documents and optional schemas to store your data.

MongoDB: The Document Database That Has Come So Far

This article looks at data units, what they measure, and how they apply when… This article looks at where Azure data center locations are, the importance of having… MongoDB is also open-source but has paid tiers like Enterprise and Atlas for the cloud. Replication is a database feature that ensures failure tolerance and high availability. Extensibility means the database is designed to be able to add new capabilities or functionalities.

In a replica set, only one node acts as primary that receives all write operations while the other instances called secondaries and apply operations from the primary. If the primary node ever fails or becomes unavailable or maintained, one of the replicas will automatically be elected through a consortium as the replacement. After the recovery of failed node, it joins the replica set again and works this time as a secondary node. 4 in which client application always interact with the primary node and the primary node then replicates the data to the secondary ones. In case of write requests the queries are forwarder only to the primary node.

Explaining the language of PostgreSQL and MongoDB

MongoDB uses denormalization, which embeds related data within documents. Denormalization helps to optimize read operations, as all the data you need for a query will be present within that document. MongoDB has currency control mechanisms that use document-level atomicity and optimistic locking. It assumes there are no conflicts between most concurrency write operations, which allows people to modify data at the same time without acquiring locks. This means that operations are either fully applied or not at all.