When to use MongoDB or other document oriented database systems?

Question

We offer a platform for video- and audio-clips, photos and vector-grafics. We started with MySQL as the database backend and recently included MongoDB for storing all meta-information of the files, because MongoDB better fits the requirements. For example: photos may have Exif information, videos may have audio-tracks where we to want to store the meta-information of, too. Videos and vector-graphics don't share any common meta-information, etc. so I know, that MongoDB is perfect to store this unstructured data and keep it searchable.

However, we continue developing our platform and adding features. Now one of the next steps will be providing a forum for our users. The question that now arises is: use the MySQL database, which would be a good choice for storing forums and forum-posts, etc. or use MongoDB for this, too?

So the question is: when to use MongoDB and when to use a RDBMS. What would you take, mongoDB or MySQL, if you had the choice and why would you take it?

Answer 1

to store this unstructured data

As you said, MongoDB is best suitable to store unstructured data. And this can organize your data into document format. These RDBMS altenatives called NoSQL data stores (MongoDB, CouchDB, Voldemort) are very useful for applications that scales massively and require faster data access from these big data stores.

And the implementation of these databases are simpler than the regular RDBMS. Since these are simple key-valued or document style binary objects directly serialized into disk. These data stores don't enforce the ACID properties, and any schemas. This doesn't provide any transaction abilities. So this can scale big and we can achive faster access (both read and write).

But in contrast, RDBM enforces ACID and schemas on datas. If you wanted to work with structured data you can go ahead with RDBM.

I would choose MySQL for creating forums for this kind of stuff. Because this is not going to scale big. And this is a very simple (common) application which has structured relations among the data.

Answer 2

I would say use an RDBMS if you need complex transactions. Otherwise I would go with MongoDB - more flexible to work with and you know it can scale when you need to. (I'm biased though - I work on the MongoDB project)

Answer 3

In NoSQL: If Only It Was That Easy, the author writes about MongoDB:

MongoDB is not a key/value store, it’s quite a bit more. It’s definitely not a RDBMS either. I haven’t used MongoDB in production, but I have used it a little building a test app and it is a very cool piece of kit. It seems to be very performant and either has, or will have soon, fault tolerance and auto-sharding (aka it will scale). I think Mongo might be the closest thing to a RDBMS replacement that I’ve seen so far. It won’t work for all data sets and access patterns, but it’s built for your typical CRUD stuff. Storing what is essentially a huge hash, and being able to select on any of those keys, is what most people use a relational database for. If your DB is 3NF and you don’t do any joins (you’re just selecting a bunch of tables and putting all the objects together, AKA what most people do in a web app), MongoDB would probably kick ass for you.

Then, in the conclusion:

The real thing to point out is that if you are being held back from making something super awesome because you can’t choose a database, you are doing it wrong. If you know mysql, just used it. Optimize when you actually need to. Use it like a k/v store, use it like a rdbms, but for god sake, build your killer app! None of this will matter to most apps. Facebook still uses MySQL, a lot. Wikipedia uses MySQL, a lot. FriendFeed uses MySQL, a lot. NoSQL is a great tool, but it’s certainly not going to be your competitive edge, it’s not going to make your app hot, and most of all, your users won’t give a shit about any of this.

What am I going to build my next app on? Probably Postgres. Will I use NoSQL? Maybe. I might also use Hadoop and Hive. I might keep everything in flat files. Maybe I’ll start hacking on Maglev. I’ll use whatever is best for the job. If I need reporting, I won’t be using any NoSQL. If I need caching, I’ll probably use Tokyo Tyrant. If I need ACIDity, I won’t use NoSQL. If I need a ton of counters, I’ll use Redis. If I need transactions, I’ll use Postgres. If I have a ton of a single type of documents, I’ll probably use Mongo. If I need to write 1 billion objects a day, I’d probably use Voldemort. If I need full text search, I’d probably use Solr. If I need full text search of volatile data, I’d probably use Sphinx.

I like this article, I find it very informative, it gives a good overview of the NoSQL landscape and hype. But, and that's the most important part, it really helps to ask yourself the right questions when it comes to choose between RDBMS and NoSQL. Worth the read IMHO.