5 Advantages and Disadvantages of MongoDB | Drawbacks & Benefits of MongoDB

MongoDB is a non-relational document based database which allows data storage of large volume.
Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) are the operations that can be performed in MongoDB. 

It is a NoSQL database. Instead of tables, it relies upon key value pairs and graphs to store data. All the data in MongoDB is stored in a binary encoding format called BSON. Major companies today are already a client of MongoDB. Developers prefer MongoDB as it offers agile methods to develop various business and internet applications. Apart from that, other industries like e-commerce, logistics, banking and gaming also make use of MongoDB. 

However, we must mention that MongoDB is a software tool. Hence, it shares advantages as well as disadvantages. Its crucial to know the pros and cons in order to find out if its the right database for your business.

In this article, I will be listing about the 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of MongoDB | Drawbacks & Benefits of MongoDB. Through this post, you will know the pros and cons of MongoDB.

Let's get started,

Advantages of MongoDB

1. Speed

When it comes to speed, MongoDB offers much higher performance levels. Compared to a relational database, the performance is almost 100x greater. 

The data in MongoDB is embedded inside the RAM rather than the hard drive. So in case of queries the information is returned at a greater speed. But in order to take this advantage, the system must be installed with sufficient RAM.

2. Scalability

MongoDB deploys a special technique known as Sharding. This technique allows MongoDB to scale horizontally. If there is large set of data, it distributes across various computer clusters. Eventually, increasing the storage capacity.

3. Availability

Since MongoDB is based on a document, it comes with features like gridFS and replication. All these features essentially increases the data availability and generates higher performance.

4. Flexibility

MongoDB lacks any schema. It uses dynamic schematic architecture This gives us flexibility to include data (both structured and unstructured) within a separate document. As your business requires real world data changes, the flexibility of MongoDB allows to move with.

5. Customer Support

MongoDB provides customer support through various means. Some of them are community forums, online tutorials and documentations. Moreover, there is a dedicated customer support team for MongoDB. Once you ran into a problem, experts in this field are ready to help you out anytime.

Disadvantages of MongoDB

1. Memory Consumption

MongoDB cannot implement joins and also duplicate data. Since it lacks joins functionality, there exists data redundancy. Eventually, this leads to high memory consumption.

2. Joins Functionality

Joining document is a functionality which is not supported by a relational database. This is because the document is already included with everything. However, there is a possibility of manual joining by creating numerous queries. This process not only is time consuming but also makes the code messy. 

3. Nesting Limitations

Nesting in MongoDB is only allowed according to the levels. The maximum allows limit for document nesting is 100 levels and size is 16 MB.

4. Indexing Issues

The performance in MongoDB can only be achieved if there is appropriate indexes. In cases where the indexes are not correctly used, it will negatively impact the performance. Thus, MongoDB will execute slower speeds.

5. Duplication of data

MongoDB is frequently subjected to data duplication. When this occurs, the relations are not well defined. Therefore, it can be challenging to handle the duplicated data. And also, as it is not ACID compliant there can be data corruption as well.