Was MongoDB Ever the Right Choice?

I used it before I understood anything about databases, and I got some jobs done with it. Now that I have some knowledge, I choose PostgreSQL for most cases. But mongodb got me up and rolling in a pretty DRY way when I first started programming for the web.

If you get to the point where your website is outgrowing it’s initial mongodb implementation, you have a very good problem on your hands.

No

I always supposed that document databases were based on object databases from the early 90s... And that the "NoSQL" craze was simply a continuation of that progression. I mean there is a difference between NoSQL and no schema. The early object databases had schemas. The reason they wanted to abandon SQL was because they believed that they never wanted relational data: they just wanted a persitance layer for their business models.

I might be wrong about that because I pretty much ignored DBs in the late 90's and 00s, so I never really followed what was happening. However, one thing I'm absolutely sure about: MongoDB had very few features that were really novel. I'm not really sure why people think everything started there (especially someone who knows about 4GL ;-) )

I'm still in charge of a production system serving around 2,000 small to medium websites from a 2-machine MongoDB cluster. It's been running on MongoDB since around 2010 and we have NEVER had any issues.

I accept that the unacknowledged writes was a bad decision, but IMHO if you deploy a new database without reading the documentation, you have bigger issues.

The reality is that there are some places where speed of movement is important and referential integrity is just not that big a deal. We're not all building banking systems.

I actually think NoSQL might be better for MVP and prototyping. Why? Because they can handle churn more quickly, and you don't have to worry about scale.

Once the data layer starts to resonate around a solution ... then pick the right horse for it.