What are the pros and cons of DynamoDB with respect to other NoSQL databases?

Question

We use MongoDB database add-on on Heroku for our SaaS product. Now that Amazon launched DynamoDB, a cloud database service, I was wondering how that changes the NoSQL offerings landscape?

Specifically for cloud based services or SaaS vendors, how will using DynamoDB be better or worse as compared to say MongoDB? Are there any cost, performance, scalability, reliability, drivers, community etc. benefits of using one versus the other?

Answer 1

For starters, it will be fully managed by Amazon's expert team, so you can bet that it will scale very well with virtually no input from the end user (developer).

Also, since its built and managed by Amazon, you can assume that they have designed it to work very well with their infrastructure so you can can assume that performance will be top notch. In addition to being specifically built for their infrastructure, they have chosen to use SSD's as storage so right from the start, disk throughput will be significantly higher than other data stores on AWS that are HDD backed.

I havent seen any drivers yet and I think its too early to tell how the community will react to this, but I suspect that Amazon will have drivers for all of the most popular languages and the community will likely receive this well - and in turn create additional drivers and tools.

Answer 2

Using MongoDB through an add-on for Heroku effectively turns MongoDB into a SaaS product as well.

In reality one would be comparing whatever service a chosen provider has compared to what Amazon can offer instead of comparing one persistance solution to another.

This is very hard to do. Each provider will have varying levels of service at different price points and one could consider the option of running it on their own hardware locally for development purposes a welcome option.

Answer 3

I think the key difference to consider is MongoDB is a software that you can install anywhere (including at AWS or at other cloud service or in-house) where as DynamoDB is a SaaS available exclusively as hosted service from Amazon (AWS). If you want to retain the option of hosting your application in-house, DynamoDB is not an option. If hosting outside of AWS is not a consideration, then, DynamoDB should be your default choice unless very specific features are of higher consideration.