Does MongoDB have a native REST interface?

Question

I am currently evaluating Mongo and CouchDB for storing data points (analytics).

During my earlier interaction with CouchDB, I loved its JSONP based interface. I could perform all CRUD operations from purely JavaScript. Just run CouchDB and write some JavaScript - no server side component needed.

When comparing this to Mongo, is there any REST interface available? Is it possible to do CRUD purely from javascript in Mongo?

Thanks!

Answer 1

There is no full-blown REST interface to MongoDB, mainly because the server uses native binary protocol for efficiency. You can find few REST wrappers in official documentation (edit: MongoDB inc has now deleted this information):

• RESTHeart (Java 8) is a the data REST API server part of the MongoDB ecosystem. RESTHeart uses a standard representation format based on HAL with full native mongodb data support via the strict mode representation of BSON. It provides API for CRUD and data model operations, built-in authentication and authorization and it supports CORS. It is easy to setup and a docker container is available. RESTHeart is also fast and lightweight (~7 Mb footprint and ~200 Mb RAM peek usage).

• Sleepy Mongoose (Python) is a full featured REST interface for MongoDB which is available as a separate project.

• Rest on Mongo for node.js. The older MongoDB Rest is no longer maintained.

• Simple REST Interface The mongod process includes a simple read-only REST interface for convenience. For full REST capabilities we recommend using an external tool such as Sleepy.Mongoose.

Answer 2

The MongoDB Atlas Data API in Preview was also released in November 2021 to use with a hosted MongoDB instance through the company's Atlas offering. It lets you send complex queries and aggregations to MongoDB over a standard HTTPS interface, though it isn't currently recommended for direct client-side access.

For instance, once a cluster is created and the Data API is enabled for it, the following request can be used to insert a document -

  curl --request POST \   'https://data.mongodb-api.com/app/<Unique ID>/endpoint/data/beta/action/insertOne' \   --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \   --header 'Access-Control-Request-Headers: *' \   --header 'api-key: <Data API Key>' \   --data-raw '{       "dataSource": "Cluster0",       "database": "todo",       "collection": "tasks",       "document": {         "status": "open",         "text": "Do the dishes"       }   }' 

and the following to do an aggregation -

curl --location --request POST 'https://data.mongodb-api.com/app/<Unique ID>/endpoint/v1/beta/action/aggregate' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --header 'Access-Control-Request-Headers: *' \ --header 'api-key:<Data API Key>' \ --data-raw '{     "collection":"movies",     "database":"sample_mflix",     "dataSource": "Cluster0",     "pipeline": [   {     "$search": {       "index": "default",       "text": {         "query": "Brad Pitt",         "path": {           "wilcard": "*"         }       }     }   } ] } 

Both the API and Atlas offer free tiers and only take a few minutes to spin up.

Full disclosure - I work for MongoDB, Inc.