Which CouchDB adapter for Ruby should I use?

Question

Some of the options I've found are

• ActiveCouch
• CouchREST
• Couch Potato
• RelaxDB
• couch_foo

I prefer projects that are on GitHub, since that makes it easiest for me to fork and push fixes. All of those fit that requirement.

I'm used to Rails, so I like things that act like ActiveRecord models. On the other hand, I also don't want too much between me and Couch -- there's a reason I'm using that as my database, after all.

Lastly, they all seem to be fairly actively maintained (with the possible exception of couch_foo).

So I guess it comes down to the (admittedly and unfortunately) subjective: has anyone had good or bad experiences with any of them?

Answer 1

ActiveCouch hasn't been made compatible with CouchDB 0.9.x and there's been some criticism that it doesn't model CouchDB semantics that well (I basically wrote it for the reason that you mentioned - that I was familiar with ActiveRecord semantics)

I think the most feature-complete and actively developed one is CouchRest.

Answer 2

I don't have an answer to the main question, but I did see George Palmer deliver a talk on CouchDB and couch_foo at Rails Underground on 24-Jul-2009, so it's probably fair to say that he's still active.

I don't think video recordings were made of the sessions in the room where George spoke, which is a shame, but they may just not be prepared yet. Try checking here.

Answer 3

It really depends on the system you're building. CouchDB isn't meant to fit a relational data system, so making it act like ActiveRecord (and thus implementing relationships) is like sticking a square peg in a round hole. CouchPotato is nice and simple to use, but (as is) only allows you to connect to one CouchDB server. CouchREST is my personal favourite of the bunch, and is very easy to use.