With introduction of some of the best nosql databases in the market , gone are those days when developers adopted the methodology of one database per application . Now even single app could have plural number of databases . All thanks to these key value databases. Before moving on to the list of nosql databases , lets discuss once what exactly they are .
What are NoSQL databases ?
[su_note note_color=”#FFF9C4″]Well it stands for Not only SQL . According to Wikipedia , a NoSQL (originally referring to “non SQL” or “non relational”) database provides a mechanism for storage and retrieval of data that is modeled in means other than the tabular relations used in relational databases[/su_note]
A database is basically a collection of information which is well organized and can easily be accessed , updated and managed. Taking a step ahead, NoSQL database are a non-relational database systems used of storing and retrieving data.
If we look at the recent trends , these key value database have gained a lot of popularity. They also come handy as they help in real time web synchronizations.
NoSQL databases are relatively very faster as compared to SQL dBs. Therefore they come very handy when you have a Big Data or cloud based application to implement.
Each NoSQL database has its own capabilities and its own complications. So before we pick one for our application, we have to make sure that it suits our requirements. So have a look at our guide for Best NoSQL databases 2019 edition.
Types of NoSQL databases :
- Graph Stores : Mostly used to store data related to network based, social and graphical algorithms.
- Key Value Stores : Items are stored as key value pairs, very similar to JSON structure . These are the most common and most simple type , widely being used.
- Document Stores : Such items have a key to which corresponding value is either a document or some complex data structure.
- Wide column Stores : Basically used for performing queries over large data sets and they store columns of data instead of rows.
- Object-oriented databases : These help organize our data models and are basically used to structure large data and complex data sets.
If you are interested in stats, you can have a look over these recent trend charts from a recent study , as mentioned on db-engines , trending and best NoSQL database guide .
Since the analytical studies have shown such order, we’ll also go in detail based on these results only. However, point to be noted here is this order doesn’t actually mean that this order will be same forever.
[su_note note_color=”#FFF9C4″]Your preference for choice of best Nosql databases may change based on your scenario of usage and technology you want to club with.[/su_note]
If you are work with python and machine learning, i would suggest you to kindly have a look at Best Python IDE for Machine Learning guide.
Moving over to the list of nosql databases along with comparisons , here is my analysis :
Best NoSQL Databases list 2019
1. MongoDB
This Open Source NoSQL database is i can say most user friendly and secure. Its highly scalable options with vast ecosystem of availability among partners makes it even more likely .
MongoDB is document oriented NoSQL database which uses JSON like structure documents to store any data. It has been written in C++ , and hence accounts for fast transactions also.
The cost at which its available makes it even more competitive to Oracle’s MySQL. It entered the database as a service in market during 2016 with MongoDB Atlas.
It also offers MongoDB stitch which helps developers integrate third party services into their application without need of any of those boilerplate code to compromise on the app security.
MongodB can be utilized as an filesystem also. MongoDB’s query language is javascript, which makes it even more easy to use. People really enjoying sharding, gridFS, advanced text searching, map-reduce features , which can be achieved with MongoDB.
Because of such variety of features , MongoDB has made to first place among this list of nosql databases .
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- High performance
- Runs over multiple servers
- Supports Master-Slave replication
- Automatic load balancing configuration as data is placed in shards
- Supports regular expression searches
- indexing fields in documents
- Easy to administer for failures
- Auto-sharding enabled
- Data is stored in JSON style documents
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Easy to setup
Horizontally scalable
Very High Performance
MongoDB Inc. provides professional support
Support for ad-hoc query
Schema-less
High-Speed Database
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Doesn’t support joins
High Data Size
Limited nesting of documents
Unnecessary usage of memory increase
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
2. Firebase dB
Firebase database is one of those freemium databases out there in market. But the point is even though it offers a paid service, i personally like it for many reasons. Therefore it got entry in my best NoSQL databases list .
Firebase is a NoSQL cloud database . A NoSQL database provides a mechanism for storage and retrieval of data which is not plain tabular form of data. Data is stored as JSON and synchronized in realtime to every connected client.
In short Firebase is a platform which allows us to build web and mobile applications , without server side programming language.
You can store and retrieve users data on its real-time database which sync data among users data in no time.
I love its real time database personally. I am using it for one of my project. Its really fast and secure.
Because of all these features , i personally think it is by far best nosql database for node js or front end applications. It removes one application layer completely.
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- Real-time Synchronization
- Offline availability of data
- No application server required
- Easily Scalable by adding more instances
- Provides completely secure access to data
- Direct connection from client using SDK
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Easily Scalable.
No application server required.
Totally secure data transfer.
Add-on google’s trust .
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Not comes free of cost.
SDK to be packaged as part of client app.
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
If you are interested in frontend applications , go check out my latest project : KanbanG – Lightweight reactjs + firebase based kanban board
3. IBM dB2
IBM dB2 is a relational Database Management System. It can be used for storing, retrieving, analyzing the data efficiently.
With the assistance of OOPs features and non-relational structures with XML, DB2 product is quite extensive. It has various features over another features which makes it usable over other RDBMS.
DB2 is one of the most “mature” Relational Databases (along with Oracle). Which also means that, it has been used in the field for a long time by a lot of people. That gives it lots of “pros” but maybe a few “cons” as well.
I have observed that it is one of the best nosql database for python based applications or products.
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- IBM BLU Acceleration .
- Optimized Storage.
- SQL compatibility.
- High availability and disaster recovery.
- Simple to administer
- faster querying
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Command line access is wonderful.
HA/DR works well out of the box.
Support is fantastic.
Supports some of Oracle’s SQL.
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Slower than the competition to roll out next-generation features.
Not user friendly and easier GUI base administrative tools.
There is definitely a bit more improvement required in data manipulation
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
4. Apache Cassandra
Apache Cassandra is one of my favourite among this list of nosql databases. Many reasons contribute to same.
It’s an open source , distributed key value NoSQL DBMS. It was first a facebook project mainly for the purpose of inbox search. Later it was released and made open source project.
It’s available in two versions : DataStax Community Edition and a commercial edition.
It was created for online applications that require fast performance and no downtime. Whereas it was totally built for handling very large amounts of data. But the main purpose of the same was to assure high availablity.
It works on Cassandra Query Language (CQL) . CQL is a SQL-like language for querying Cassandra Database. Cassandra has been purely written in JAVA.
Cassandra is being used by some of the biggest tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Twitter, Netflix, Cisco and more.
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- Linearly scalable.
- Very quick response time.
- Supports ACID properties.
- Maximal flexibility to distribute the data.
- Peer-to-peer architecture.
- Supports MapReduce with Apache Hadoop.
- Highly available and scalable.
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Highly salability.
No single point of failure.
Multi-DC Replication.
Integrates closely with JVM based applications
More suitable for multiple data-center deployments, redundancy, failover and disaster recovery
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Aggregations not supported fully.
Performance not predicatable sometimes.
No support for ad-hoc query.
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
5. Redis NoSQL database
“Dead-Simple Configuration and Scary-Fast Performance” is what one of the reviews read for Redis. it is basically used for cache management and that is how it has been recommended to use always.
Redis cannot be claimed as a permanent back end data storage solution but it is best at what it is supposed to do. That is cache management.
Due to its fast performance and key value structure , it is so very easy to use. It supports almost all languages. It is widely used with C++, PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl, Scala and many more.
It’s been written in C++ . By far it is the fastest NoSQL databases. So due to its fast transactions , it is considered as best nosql database for analytics based products caching and usage.
I used Redis recently in one of my project and created this guide : How to deploy Redis on Heroku
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- Automatic failover
- In memory database
- Transactions supported
- Lua scripting
- Data could be replicated to any number of slave nodes
- Keys with a limited time to live
- LRU eviction of keys
- Supports Publishing – Subscription
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Redis is easy to install and maintain.
It is very fast, especially with set operations.
Redis is cost effective.
Error resilient
Easy to use
Binary key-value store support
Simple data structures
Very well documented
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Clustering, especially with multiple write nodes, can be difficult to configure.
Configuring extremely high availability can be difficult.
Nested use of data structures
GUI tool in better shape
More courses on Redis
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
6. HBASE
Since HBase is a NoSQL database , it is open source and can store big data. We can store any structured, semi-structured and unstructured data very easily.
One other major benefit of using this fast NoSQL database , it is a columnar database so there is no need to specify any schema. Trust me it is one of the best nosql database for big data applications.
HBase stores the big data in a very good manner and it is horizontally scalable. There are many other security tools available which could be easily integrated along, like Atlas and Ranger.
It helps in querying the records much faster than any other NoSQL databases.
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- Fast. HBase is extremely fast to scan values or retrieve individual records by key.
- Scalability. HBase can scale to trillions of records.
- It is easy to set up DR and backups.
- Provides data replication
- HBase can be accessed by standard SQL via Apache Phoenix.
- Ingest. It is easy to ingest data into HBase via shell, Java, Apache NiFi, Storm, Spark, Flink, Python and other means.
- Integrated. I can easily store and retrieve data from HBase using Apache Spark.
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Extremely fast key lookups and write throughput.
Fast lookups for larger tables.
Handle large datasets on top of HDFS file storage
Flexible on schema design
Easy Java API for client
Auto-sharding
License-free
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Doesn’t support transaction
No permissions or built-in authentication
Indexed and sorted only on key.
Multi-tenancy is still work in progress
Usability and beginner friendliness
It has a bad reputation of being complex
Better tool for system-level metric monitoring.
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
7. Neo4J
If you are looking for a graph database solution then Neo4j should be your choice . It is the most robust and easiest solution out there in the market.
The community version is free and the community support around Neo4j is really good. However you may have to pay for the premium features. Performance of this database is extremely fast.
Neo4j can be used to store data that have tree kind of relationships. It addressees the problems of storing data which have multiple relationship surprisingly amazing way.
” Are you ready for the best Graph Database in town? ” – read one of the reviews on Trust radius.
It uses CYPHER as the query language. It stores data similar way as you would draw it on whiteboard.
If you are a python user then this is for sure one of the best nosql database for python .
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- It’s extremely fast.
- Its query language CYPHER is very intuitive and easy to use.
- Neo4j provides API support for almost every language like Java, Python, PHP, NodeJS, etc.
- Supports both CYPHER API and native JAVA API.
- Packages a UI to run CQL Commands.
- Provides support for all ACID rules.
- Supports Indexes
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Easy to retrieve relationship details without Joins or Indexes.
Easy to learn Neo4j CQL commands.
Represents semi-structured data cleanly.
High availability .
Simplified tuning.
Native support for REST API.
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Sometimes it becomes hard to visualize complex data analysis.
Tough to see too much space used.
Tough to do configurations or allocate memory sometimes.
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
If you are a mobile developer , maybe you’d be interested in having a look at my most starred Github project : MagicPrint – ECommerce App Android Open Source Project with Code Download
8. Amazon DynamoDB
DynamoDB is also one of those NoSQL databases which use non relational database . It can be use to used to store any kind of data structure be it graph, columnar or documents .
DynamoDB helps support the very random access patterns, not matter what may be the inputs. With DynamoDB, we can automatically scale to whatever needs we want to cater .
Unlike traditional SQL or Relational databases, DynamoDB is totally designed to have all relevant data within one single object.
Whereas DynamoDB does not have join table support, nor does it support complex searches. There is no ‘rollback’ option too.
It’s JSON structure makes it best nosql database for node js or any other javascript based application.
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- DynamoDB will automatically scale horizontally and vertically.
- If you use Elastic Map Reduce for your analytics projects, DynamoDB will integrate nicely.
- Creating a table with a partition/sort key is very easy.
- You can store both structured and unstructured data.
- It works great with frontend development as it’s JSON based.
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Highly Scalable.
Hash Range for range values.
Partition based data storage.
Uses JSON for storage , with single parent object, which makes usage easy.
Easy to set up.
Auto-scaling.
Reduces the complexity of managing scaling for peak usage times.
Encrypted data transfer.
DynamoDB is secured by AWS Identity.
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Doesn’t support backup for free.
Limited size availablity.
There is a cost associated with creating indexes
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
9. Oracle NoSQL database
All these days Oracle was backing up SQL databases. However, breaking the trend Oracle recently launched Oracle NoSQL database. It started becoming popular inthe year 2019 . Even though it is less popular compared to MongoDB or Cassandra databases but it serves the purpose correctly.
Oracle NoSQL Database implements a map for user-defined keys to keep opaque data items. It keeps only one latest version of records and doesn’t really implements versioning. However it generates it own internal version and you can’t provide them.
It supports both physical and logical structures. It could be one of those best nosql database for big data , you never know.
I have seen it getting popular only among Enterprises. Small businesses have seriously not considered it as of now.
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- Supports big data handling.
- Supports SQL.
- Provides JAVA/C apis to read and write data
- It is a distributed database
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Peer to peer problem solving community.
Based on SQL programming principles.
Secure and updates prompted timely.
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Very high cost and not affordable by small organisations.
Installation not easy.
Hardware upgrades required specific to Oracle.
Too much memory captured.
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
10. Memcached NoSQL database
So last on our best nosql databases list is Memcached. I would not say it’s a full fledged dB , but rather a database load sharing mechanism.
It is usually used as an open source, high-performance, distributed memory caching system, totally intended to speed up dynamic web applications. It is a key value database stored in memory.
Memcached is somewhat similar to REDIS.
It is being used by Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia, Twitter, YouTube and others.
[su_box title=”Features” box_color=”#ffffff” title_color=”#000000″]
- Main database load sharing.
- Has a big has table structure.
- Efficient if you have relatively highly loaded dB.
- Combine memory caches into a logical pool
[/su_box]
[i2pc]
[i2pros]
Easy to set up and zero maintenance.
Relatively low cost.
Very well documented.
Huge support community
[/i2pros]
[i2cons]
Only supported on Linux operating systems.
No data redundancy.
No locks support.
[/i2cons]
[/i2pc]
Do you work on Intellij Idea IDE ? Consider having a look at this beautifully written article then : Best Intellij Plugins That Will Make Your Life Better !
Conclusion on best nosql databases :
So with that we finally come to our conclusion of our list of best nosql databases. Since we have already listed all the possible scenarios and detailed description, we would like you to go through the article.
One cannot simply tell which database is best for your application , as you might have a different scenario or application of a dB as to what i suggest. So , based on your implementation , you can select one and go ahead.
Let us know which one you went for by commenting below. Feel free to share your opinion , as well as recommendation for some other dB inclusion in our best free nosql database list.