MongoDB for personal non-distributed work

Question

This might be answered here (or elsewhere) before but I keep getting mixed/no views on the internet.

I have never used anything else except SQL like databases and then I came across NoSQL DBs (mongoDB, specifically). I tried my hands on it. I was doing it just for fun, but everywhere the talk is that it is really great when you are using it across distributed servers. So I wonder, if it is any helpful(in a non-trivial way) for doing small projects and things mainly only on a personal computer? Are there some real advantages when there is just one server.

Although it would be cool to use MapReduce (and talk about it to peers :d) won't it be an overkill when used for small projects run on single servers? Or are there other advantages of this? I need some clear thought. Sorry if I sounded naive here.

Optional: Some examples where/how you have used would be great.

Thanks.

Answer 1

IMHO, MongoDB is perfectly valid for use for single server/small projects and it's not a pre-requisite that you should only use it for "big data" or multi server projects.

If MongoDB solves a particular requirement, it doesn't matter on the scale of the project so don't let that aspect sway you. Using MapReduce may be a bit overkill/not the best approach if you truly have low volume data and just want to do some basic aggregations - these could be done using the group operator (which currently has some limitations with regard to how much data it can return).

So I guess what I'm saying in general is, use the right tool for the job. There's nothing wrong with using MongoDB on small projects/single PC. If a RDBMS like SQL Server provides a better fit for your project then use that. If a NoSQL technology like MongoDB fits, then use that.

Answer 2

+1 on AdaTheDev - but there are 3 more things to note here:

1. Durability: From version 1.8 onwards, MongoDB has single server durability when started with --journal, so now it's more applicable to single-server scenarios
2. Choosing a NoSQL DB over say an RDBMS shouldn't be decided upon the single or multi server setting, but based on the modelling of the database. See for example 1 and 2 - it's easy to store comment-like structures in MongoDB.
3. MapReduce: again, it depends on the data modelling and the operation/calculation that needs to occur. Depending on the way you model your data you may or may not need to use MapReduce.