When to use CouchDB vs RDBMS

Posted by Andrew Whitehouse on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Andrew Whitehouse
Published on 2009-08-20T15:47:25Z Indexed on 2010/04/28 16:13 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 374

Filed under:

couchdb

|

database

|

rdbms

I am looking at CouchDB, which has a number of appealing features over relational databases including:

intuitive REST/HTTP interface
easy replication
data stored as documents, rather than normalised tables

I appreciate that this is not a mature product so should be adopted with caution, but am wondering whether it is actually a viable replacement for an RDBMS (in spite of the intro page saying otherwise - http://couchdb.apache.org/docs/intro.html).

Under what circumstances would CouchDB be a better choice of database than an RDBMS (e.g. MySQL), e.g. in terms of scalability, design + development time, reliability and maintenance.
Are there still cases where an RDBMS is still clearly the right choice?
Is this an either-or choice, or is a hybrid solution more likely to emerge as best practice?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about couchdb

How-to index arrays (tags) in CouchDB using couchdb-lucene

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
The setup: I have a project that is using CouchDB. The documents will have a field called "tags". This "tags" field is an array of strings (e.g., "tags":["tag1","tag2","etc"]). I am using couchdb-lucene as my search provider. The question: What function can be used to get couchdb-lucene to index… >>> More
CouchDB crashes at startup when path to config file has space(s)

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm hoping to run CouchDB as a per-user Launch Agent on OS X. I'm using the coucdbx-core folder from the CouchDB Server.app as the base of my CouchDB deployment. I'd like each user to have their own couch instance (on a different port), necessitating separate config files for each instance. The logical… >>> More
How to remove all Couchdb versions in Ubuntu 10.04 (server)? ( after multiple installs )

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi all, I have done multiple installs of CouchDB using sudo aptitude install couchdb sudo ap-get install couchdb and more recently based on the instructions found at L http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Installing_on_Ubuntu May I know how do I uninstall or remove all the above installations? Best… >>> More
How can I proxy couchDB as a sub-diectory with lighttpd?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a sub-directory on my web server (lighttpd) that I want to point at a CouchDB instance running on the same machine. I tried using mod_proxy but it sends along the whole request, like a proxy should, I know! So: // What happens: Lighttpd: http://localhost/couchdb/some_request | V CouchDB:… >>> More
Map/Reduce on an array of hashes in CouchDB

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello everyone, I am looking for a map/reduce function to calculate the status in a Design Document. Below you can see an example document from my current database. { "_id": "0238f1414f2f95a47266ca43709a6591", "_rev": "22-24a741981b4de71f33cc70c7e5744442", "status": "retrieved image urls"… >>> More

Related posts about database

SQL SERVER Retrieve and Explore Database Backup without Restoring Database Idera virtual database

as seen on Dot net Slackers - Search for 'Dot net Slackers'
I recently downloaded Ideras SQL virtual database, and tested it. There are a few things about this tool which caught my attention.My ScenarioIt is quite common in real life that sometimes observing or retrieving older data is necessary; however, it had changed as time passed by. The full database… >>> More
Cloning A Database On The Same Server Using Rman Duplicate From Active Database

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
To clone a database using Rman we used to require an existing Rman backup, on 11g we can clone databases using the "from active" database option. In this case we do not require an existing backup, the active datafiles will be used as the source for the clone. In order to clone with the source database… >>> More
cPickle ImportError: No module named multiarray

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, I'm using cPickle to save my Database into file. The code looks like that: def Save_DataBase(): import cPickle from scipy import * from numpy import * a=Results.VersionName #filename='D:/results/'+a[a.find('/')+1:-a.find('/')-2]+Results.AssType[:3]+str(random.randint(0,100))+Results.Distribution+"… >>> More
SQL SERVER – 2008 – Introduction to Snapshot Database – Restore From Snapshot

as seen on SQL Authority - Search for 'SQL Authority'
Snapshot database is one of the most interesting concepts that I have used at some places recently. Here is a quick definition of the subject from Book On Line: A Database Snapshot is a read-only, static view of a database (the source database). Multiple snapshots can exist on a source database and… >>> More
OTN ???? ?????? ???????

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
Database ?? Database ??????? Database ?????????? Java WebLogic Server/????????·???? SOA/BPM/????? ???????/???? ID??/?????? ?????EPM/BI EPM/BI ??????? EPM/BI ???? OS/??? ???? ????? MySQL Database ?? ???? ?? ????????? ??? ?? ORACLE MASTER… >>> More