What are the main differences between MongoDB and MySQL?
MySQL
MySQL is a popular, free-to-use, and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Oracle. As with other relational systems, MySQL stores data using tables and rows, enforces referential integrity, and uses structured query language (SQL) for data access. When users need to retrieve data from a MySQL database, they must construct an SQL query that joins multiple tables together to create the view on the data they require. Database schemas and data models need to be defined ahead of time, and data must match this schema to be stored in the database. This rigid approach to storing data offers some degree of safety, but trades this for flexibility. If a new type or format of data needs to be stored in the database, schema migration must occur, which can become complex and expensive as the size of the database grows.
MongoDB
MongoDB is also free to use and open source; however, its design principles differ from traditional relational systems. Often styled as a non-relational (or NoSQL) system, MongoDB adopts a significantly different approach to storing data, representing information as a series of JSON-like documents (actually stored as binary JSON), as opposed to the table and row format of relational systems. MongoDB documents consist of a series of key/value pairs of varying types, including arrays and nested documents; however, the primary difference is that the structure of the key/value pairs in a given collection can vary from document to document. This more flexible approach is possible because documents are self-describing.
You can easily notice the differences between their Terms and Concepts in the schema below :
and also here’s a basic comparison between their syntax :
but what actually matters for us as a developers, is the performance and the user-friendliness. and MongoDB is an attractive option since it’s data storage philosophy is simple and immediately understandable to anybody with programming experience, and also it’s faster than MySQL since it’s stores the related data together instead of storing it on different tables and joining them after.
Commune Questions
Is MongoDB faster than MySQL?
Since MongoDB's document model stores related data together, it is often faster to retrieve a single document from MongoDB than to JOIN data across multiple tables in MySQL.
Many customers have evaluated and selected MongoDB over MySQL, both because of better performance at scale and for radical improvements to developer productivity.
Why is using MongoDB better than using MySQL?
Organizations of all sizes are adopting MongoDB, especially as a cloud database, because it enables them to build applications faster, handle highly diverse data types, and manage applications more efficiently at scale.
Development is simplified as MongoDB documents map naturally to modern, object-oriented programming languages. Using MongoDB removes the complex object-relational mapping (ORM) layer that translates objects in code to relational tables. MongoDB’s flexible data model also means that your database schema can evolve with business requirements. MySQL's rigid relational structure adds overhead to applications and slows developers down as they must adapt objects in code to a relational structure.
MongoDB can also be scaled within and across multiple distributed data centers, providing new levels of availability and scalability previously unachievable with relational databases like MySQL. As your deployments grow in terms of data volume and throughput, MongoDB scales easily with no downtime, and without changing your application. In contrast, achieving scale with MySQL often requires significant custom engineering work.