Some Serious Accusation - mongodb-user

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Message from discussion Some Serious Accusation
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 08:34:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Maciej Gajewski <maciej.gajews...@gmail.com>
To: mongodb-user@googlegroups.com
Message-Id: <46894ea6-8b2f-493e-ae7f-ea04cb74eba4@googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <b55cca8c-8123-448d-8dad-61b935bfcddb@googlegroups.com>
References: <b55cca8c-8123-448d-8dad-61b935bfcddb@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Some Serious Accusation
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Mongo is nice product and occupies unique niche on the market, but I 
wouldn't use it for mission-critical production data.

I use Mongo a lot to store and analyze some auxiliary, expendable data, and 
it works well. It's nice in small deployments and in prototyping, but the 
issues are real, serious, and - the most grave accusation - they probably 
never going to be fixed!

Let me elaborate.

1. Mongo will use unbeliveable amounts of disk space and memory. When we 
replaced our postgresdb, that was running happily for years alongside other 
apps on some server in the corner of the data-centre, it was all fine 
initially, but after 100M or so documents we had to migrate it to new box 
with hundreds TB of disk and tenths GB of RAM. Hidden, unexpected cost.

And I don't think this is going to be fixed, because of the products 
architecture - it is simplistic. It uses the same data format (BSON) 
everywhere: from client driver, through the network communication, db 
internals all the way down to the disk. Sure, it makes things simpler and 
sometimes faster, but it makes replacing and redeveloping product 
components impossible; you can not add compression to the on-disk or on-the 
wire format when you are mapping the data directly into memory and use as 
your internal data structure.

2. Mongo is haunted with gazillion of tiny problems which you may miss or 
ignore during the evaluation phase. You may fall in love with all the nice 
features, and then wake up dying a dead by thousand cuts; These issues are: 
inconsistent API, difficulties with running server-side code, terrible 
performance and concurrency issues (2.2 improves things only slightly), 
problems with compiling and using C++ driver, reliability issues etc.

And I don't thing they are going to be fixed anytime soon as well. If you 
inspect Mongo's source code, you'll understand; It's poor craftsmanship all 
over. It's so bad that you would have to don protective goggles to save 
your eyeballs from imminent cancer. The code is really that bad. And I 
can't see any major architectural improvements coming into new versions; 
only new features and bug fixes.

The sad thing is that 10GEN management doesn't seem to be concerned about 
it. I've been attending one if the recent Mongo conferences and seen a 
"tour of the source code" by one of the directors. He was showing off the 
code proudly. Younger attendees were delighted, more experienced ones 
(including me) couldn't believe their eyes. Seriously.

Summary:

Mongo is nice and useful toy, but don't make your business depend on it. 
You need to remember that despite being open-source project, it's a 
commercial product with significant marketing budget. Take everything you 
read with grain of salt (including my rant here :) ) and test mongo 
thoroughly in all scenarios, under heavy load etc before using it.

On Tuesday, 25 September 2012 15:51:43 UTC+1, grant li wrote:
>
> Hi,
>   We are a team trying to use mongoDB. But we found this article saying 
> several severe issues they encountered when using Mongo. They eventually 
> turned away from Mongo.
>   Can someone explain if these drawbacks are true? What can be done for 
> each of the drawbacks? Is mongo reliable?
>
>
> http://caffeinbean.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/reallife-experience-with-mongodb-and-why-we-are-dumping-it/
>   
>

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Mongo is nice product and occupies unique niche on the market, but I wouldn=
't use it for mission-critical production data.<br><br>I use Mongo a lot to=
 store and analyze some auxiliary, expendable data, and it works well. It's=
 nice in small deployments and in prototyping, but the issues are real, ser=
ious, and - the most grave accusation - they probably never going to be fix=
ed!<br><br>Let me elaborate.<br><br>1. Mongo will use unbeliveable amounts =
of disk space and memory. When we replaced our postgresdb, that was running=
 happily for years alongside other apps on some server in the corner of the=
 data-centre, it was all fine initially, but after 100M or so documents we =
had to migrate it to new box with hundreds TB of disk and tenths GB of RAM.=
 Hidden, unexpected cost.<br><br>And I don't think this is going to be fixe=
d, because of the products architecture - it is simplistic. It uses the sam=
e data format (BSON) everywhere: from client driver, through the network co=
mmunication, db internals all the way down to the disk. Sure, it makes thin=
gs simpler and sometimes faster, but it makes replacing and redeveloping pr=
oduct components impossible; you can not add compression to the on-disk or =
on-the wire format when you are mapping the data directly into memory and u=
se as your internal data structure.<br><br>2. Mongo is haunted with gazilli=
on of tiny problems which you may miss or ignore during the evaluation phas=
e. You may fall in love with all the nice features, and then wake up dying =
a dead by thousand cuts; These issues are: inconsistent API, difficulties w=
ith running server-side code, terrible performance and concurrency issues (=
2.2 improves things only slightly), problems with compiling and using C++ d=
river, reliability issues etc.<br><br>And I don't thing they are going to b=
e fixed anytime soon as well. If you inspect Mongo's source code, you'll un=
derstand; It's poor craftsmanship all over. It's so bad that you would have=
 to don protective goggles to save your eyeballs from imminent cancer. The =
code is really that bad. And I can't see any major architectural improvemen=
ts coming into new versions; only new features and bug fixes.<br><br>The sa=
d thing is that 10GEN management doesn't seem to be concerned about it. I'v=
e been attending one if the recent Mongo conferences and seen a "tour of th=
e source code" by one of the directors. He was showing off the code proudly=
. Younger attendees were delighted, more experienced ones (including me) co=
uldn't believe their eyes. Seriously.<br><br>Summary:<br><br>Mongo is nice =
and useful toy, but don't make your business depend on it. You need to reme=
mber that despite being open-source project, it's a commercial product with=
 significant marketing budget. Take everything you read with grain of salt =
(including my rant here :) ) and test mongo thoroughly in all scenarios, un=
der heavy load etc before using it.<br><br>On Tuesday, 25 September 2012 15=
:51:43 UTC+1, grant li  wrote:<blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"ma=
rgin: 0;margin-left: 0.8ex;border-left: 1px #ccc solid;padding-left: 1ex;">=
<div>Hi,</div><div>&nbsp; We are a team trying to use mongoDB. But we found=
 this article saying several severe issues they encountered when using Mong=
o. They eventually turned away from Mongo.</div><div>&nbsp; Can someone exp=
lain if these drawbacks are true? What can be done for each of the drawback=
s? Is mongo reliable?</div><div><br></div><a href=3D"http://caffeinbean.wor=
dpress.com/2012/07/29/reallife-experience-with-mongodb-and-why-we-are-dumpi=
ng-it/" target=3D"_blank">http://caffeinbean.wordpress.<wbr>com/2012/07/29/=
reallife-<wbr>experience-with-mongodb-and-<wbr>why-we-are-dumping-it/</a>&n=
bsp;&nbsp;<br></blockquote>
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