
Viber Replaces MongoDB with Couchbase - naryad
http://www.couchbase.com/presentations/couchbase-tlv-2014-couchbase-at-viber
======
manishsharan
My eyes hurt from reading so much PRese. Look, every organization from from
Solution A to Solution B in due course-- and that is a PR Story. But for it to
be useful programmers, there has to be some amount of quantitative data to
support the decision ;a video embed doesn't count. Surely Couchbase folks can
do better than this to catch our attention.

~~~
RyanZAG
The video does provide some quantitative data and the slides underneath do as
well. I'd prefer a proper article, but it's not that bad.

Companies seem to be jumping off mongodb left and right, with the only ones
sticking to it being small ones with lower replication requirements - the kind
of situation that pgsql etc deals with far better. Mongodb seems to be the
worst of both worlds - a lack of scalability and a lack of per-node rich joins
and similar.

~~~
raverbashing
MongoDB solves the problem of developer time being expensive. It's simple to
use and understands JSON data.

Once you grow past it you know where the problems in your data are and can
optimize accordingly.

~~~
collyw
> MongoDB solves the problem of developer time being expensive.

I don't know about this argument. I am involved with a project to build a rare
diseases database, and it might get moderately big (maybe ~1Tb). Somewhere on
a related project a MySQL server crashed, so the guys building this new system
have jumped right on the NoSQL bandwagon (despite the fact we clearly have
relational data). 6 months ago, it was all Mongo DB. Last week it was Tokyo
Cabinet.

I am currently benchmarking Postgres (they seem not to have done that). I
think I could achieve similar functionality in two weeks what these guys have
taken 6 months to do using all the NoSQL solutions they have had tried (and
needed to learn).

When you have mature frameworks like Rails or Django that take a lot of the
grunt work out of traditional RDMBS systems, I don't think it really is
correct to say that Mongo DB saves developer time. In Certain areas, yes, but
think there is a bigger picture to take into account.

~~~
raverbashing
"When you have mature frameworks like Rails or Django that take a lot of the
grunt work out of traditional RDMBS systems, I don't think it really is
correct to say that Mongo DB saves developer time."

Depends. Sometimes Django ORM is great. Sometimes, it is _awful_ (yes,
sometimes the models have crazy links between them, this is the most frequent
cause of problems)

Sure, if your data is relational, go for a RDBMS. But sometimes it isn't.

And yes, if they're taking 6 months to do something in MongoDB there's
something wrong with what/how they're trying to do it.

~~~
collyw
They are choosing NoSQL hype for relational data. That's what they are doing
wrong.

~~~
raverbashing
You can have relations in MongoDB of course, however they are not as in an
Relational DB.

The problem is that they get the "MongoDB == no relations" literally and are
trying to put a round peg in a square hole.

I personally find it hilarious when someone is hitting their head in the desk
with the "no relations" thing, as if it's a huge sin to have a id (or other
information) of an item in another table.

------
rubiquity
I don't entirely know what Viber does, but given how very different MongoDB
and Couchbase are, I think they made a terrible choice of using MongoDB in the
first place. You can't fault MongoDB for that. Viber announcing this change is
more of an admission that their architects/engineers made a bad choice than it
is a slight against MongoDB.

Also, I don't like MongoDB very much and almost always find another more
suitable database (both SQL and NoSQL) for the projects that I have worked on.

~~~
cbaleanu
Viber allows you to make voice and video calls aswell. In my country, texting
is not popular, voice calling is, so Viber is the must have app.

As an added bonus, it works flawlessly from overseas as well, so you can call
anyone else that's using Viber for free.

~~~
frik
Do you mind to disclose your country or continent where Viber (or video chat)
is popular.

I can only speak of myself, in central Europe Skype (voice, video) and
WhatsApp (group chat) are popular. Facebook is increasingly used by elder
population and shunt by younger generations.

As I avoid WhatsApps (it sucks IMHO ..no Web and Tablet support, shady
company), I would welcome any competitor.

------
vosper
Is anyone else using Couchbase? I'm evaluating it for a project with a mobile
component and Couchbase Mobile with its automatic syncing seems like a great
solution. Would love to hear peoples thoughts.

~~~
rdtsc
Cloudant also has this mobile sync capability, they just released recently.
They are also compatible with CouchDB (which Couchbase I think is not).

~~~
rch
+1 for Cloudant - there are some truly top-notch folks over there.

Of course there are smart people at Couchbase too, I'd just suggest giving
Cloudant some serious consideration.

------
shittyanalogy
In related news, Viber manages to bootstrap their startup all the way to
billions of messages and talking minutes per month with MongoDB.

Sounds like Mongo was a great choice and they're just growing up.

------
jaihirsch
Couchbase and MongoDB are both excellent databases and have their place. I
work with a MongoDB implementation that has over 12.75 billion records, adds
over a billion records per year, and runs in a high availability, high read
environment. [http://jaihirsch.github.io/straw-in-a-
haystack//mongodb/2014...](http://jaihirsch.github.io/straw-in-a-
haystack//mongodb/2014/01/06/mongodb-legacy-migration/)

Know your problem domain, do your research, benchmark, test multiple
solutions, and don’t be afraid to reengineer. That is how you scale.

------
ninv
They picked the wrong product in first place. MongoDB and Couchbase are two
different databases.

