Updated May 12, 2023
Is MongoDB Open Source?
Yes, MongoDB is Open Source. You can download a community version of MongoDB and do not need to pay for the license. Let’s understand in detail MongoDB and Open Source.
What is Open Source?
Open Source software is a software development community that accepts modified, enhanced, or bug-fixed codes from the developer. The source code of open-source software or projects is publicly accessible. Any developer can modify and share its design. You do not have to pay for the license to use any open-source software for personal or professional use. The open-source community celebrates and embraces open exchange principles, the rapid development of software, collaborative participation of developers, meritocracy, transparency, and community-oriented development for different projects and products. The open-source community’s motive and vision are to benefit programmers and non-programmers. The success of an open-source initiative depends on the following:
- We are raising awareness and adoption of your project.
- Keeping your forums alive with information, questions, and challenges
- Organizing real-life events for distributed communities
- Extending the understanding—and value—of open-source software and development models, all toward a common goal.
What is MongoDB?
MongoDB is an open-source document-oriented database. MongoDB is a NoSQL database. It is written in C++. MongoDB is a free and cross-platform database. Different features of MongoDB are:
- MongoDB is a distributed database.
- MongoDB is a high-availability NoSQL database.
- It supports horizontal scaling.
- Geographic distribution is built-in and easy to use for MongoDB.
MongoDB stores data in flexible format JSON-like documents. It means fields can vary from document to document, and data structure can be changed over time. Instead of using tables and rows in relational databases, the MongoDB architecture comprises collections and documents. Each database contains collections which in turn include documents. Each document can be different from the varying number of fields. The size and content of each document can be different from each other. MongoDB is a highly scalable and performance-oriented database.
Collection
It is termed as the group of documents in MongoDB and is similar to the Relational Database Management System table. The collection doesn’t enforce any schema and exists within a single database. Documents within a collection can be of different types.
Document
The document has a dynamic schema and is defined into key-value pairs. The dynamic schema in MongoDB means that documents in the same collection do not need the same set of fields or structure and common fields in a collection’s documents, and it may hold different types of data.
Open Source License – MongoDB
All open-source products do not share the same licenses. Different software has different licenses and agreements. MongoDB created and owned the copyright to its code. They are two versions of MongoDB.
Enterprise Version
You need to pay for the license for business use. Copyrights of source code are with the company. MongoDB is a typical post-relational modern database. They have added security features, an in-memory storage engine, administration, authentication features, and monitoring capabilities through Ops Manager.
Community Version
You can download it for free, and can work freely. The license is free of charge. You can’t make any changes to the source code.
MongoDB Benefits from Open Source
MongoDB is a leading database in NoSQL. The different community widely accepts the MongoDB open source. Open-source products in the enterprise and express editions are becoming increasingly common. Thanks to the interest of Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and eBay publicly praising the advantages of adopting open source products on a larger scale. The challenges arise about the company’s growth beyond providing support to the customer when it is free. MongoDB Open Source is taking this challenge head-on, and they have launched a new consulting arm.
They are doing something different regarding their approach, hoping to make their business profitable and sustainable for the longer term. MongoDB Open Source has proprietary, differentiated products around their open source core product. When they sell a subscription, the buyer buys support and access to these proprietary tools. These proprietary tools make it easier and safer for MongoDB. This is how they are bringing more revenue by being open source.
Why MongoDB?
Load balancing
MongoDB uses the concept of sharding to scale horizontally by splitting data across multiple MongoDB instances. Sharding occurs when different data table parts are spread across various servers. MongoDB can run over multiple servers, balancing the load and/or duplicating data to keep the system running in case of hardware failure. Hashed-based sharding randomly distributes new entries across all the available servers.
Document-oriented
MongoDB is a NoSQL document-oriented type of database. It stores data in documents. This makes MongoDB very flexible and adaptable to real business world situations and requirements.
Ad hoc queries
MongoDB supports search by field, range queries, and regular expression searches. Queries can be made to return specific fields within documents.
Indexing
Indexes support the efficient execution of queries in MongoDB. Indexes can be created to improve the performance of searches within MongoDB. MongoDB can use the index to limit the number of documents it must inspect. Indexes are special data structures that quickly store a small portion of the collection’s data set to traverse form.
Replication
A replica set in MongoDB is a group of MongoDB processes that maintain the same data set. MongoDB can provide high availability with replica sets for the basics for all production deployment. Replication provides redundancy and increases data availability.
Conclusion
MongoDB is an open-source NoSQL database. There are two editions of MongoDB. One is MongoDB Open Source, and this edition is freely available as part of the open source community, but for a while, you need to pay for the license. This edition has some advanced features comparing the free edition. MongoDB Open Source is one of the leading NoSQL databases widely accepted by many professionals. Ideally, I can say that developers prefer MongoDB Open Source.
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