IBM Cloudant vs. PostgreSQL

IBM Cloudant is the best implementation of CouchDB, or any NoSQL database that you could use if you are looking for a database that can handle extremely rapid writes to a database without having to worry about transactional integrity. IBM Cloudant also abstracts out CouchDB's replication/multi-node requirements and ensures high availability on its own. It also allows map-reduce based indexing which will allow massive databases to be aggregated and queried very quickly. It should not be used in cases where you require structured data which is organized according to a schema, or if you want to maintain ACID database properties.

Incentivized

Based on my experience, PostgreSQL is exactly what I imagine when thinking of a relational database: it is fast for querying and intuitive (if the underlying relations have been well written) and its writes are also efficient. Of course you need to know that a relational database is what you need, for example I would not recommend it if you have a lot of unstructured data that have no way to create a relation from and if you need to run heavy aggregations over your data, as it is not where PostgreSQL would shine.

Incentivized

• We had a small data mart project that required the storage of some rather highly connected data that also had a relatively small footprint. This made IBM Cloudant an obvious choice because we could store the data in a data structure that met our project need al while using a platform that our web development team understood and was comfortable with.
• We had a bunch of geospatial data that we needed for analysis. Having GeoJSON being natively supported by Cloudant made it an easy choice.
• Cloudant was cloud-based and didn't require a DBA support it, this allowed the project to move ahead without pushback from the infrastructure team.

Incentivized

• The stability it offers, its speed of response and its resource management is excellent even in complex database environments and with low-resource machines.
• The large amount of resources it has in addition to the many own and third-party tools that are compatible that make productivity greatly increase.
• The adaptability in various environments, whether distributed or not, [is a] complete set of configuration options which allows to greatly customize the work configuration according to the needs that are required.
• The excellent handling of referential and transactional integrity, its internal security scheme, the ease with which we can create backups are some of the strengths that can be mentioned.

Incentivized

• To have a sort of LUW - Logical Unit Work when many documents are involved into a single update process. The changing of one document is related to its status information but it must be synchronized with all the other documents involved in the process.

Incentivized

• The query syntax for JSON fields is unwieldy when you start getting into complex queries with many joins.
• I wish there was a distinction (a flag) you could set for automated scripts vs working in the psql CLI, which would provide an 'Are you sure you want to do X?' type prompt if your query is likely to affect more than a certain number of rows. Especially on updates/deletes. Setting the flag in the headless(scripted) flow would disable the prompt.
• Better documentation around JSON and Array aggregation, with more examples of how the data is transformed.

Incentivized

the flexibility of NoSQL allow us to modify and upgrade our apps very fast and in a convenient way. Having the solution hosted by IBM is also giving us the chance to focus on features and the improvement of our apps. It's one thing less to be worried about

Incentivized

As a needed software for day to day development activities

Incentivized

It's mostly just a straight forward API to a data store. I knock one off for the full text search thing, but I don't need it much anyways. Also, the dashboard UI they give is pretty nice to use. It provides syntax-highlighting for writing views and queries are easy to test. I wish other DBs had a UI like this.

Incentivized

Postgresql is the best tool out there for relational data so I have to give it a high rating when it comes to analytics, data availability and consistency, so on and so forth. SQL is also a relatively consistent language so when it comes to building new tables and loading data in from the OLTP database, there are enough tools where we can perform ETL on a scalable basis.

Incentivized

it is a highly available solution in the IBM cloud portfolio and hence we have never had any issues with the data base being available - we also do continuous replication to be on the safer side just in case some thing goes awry. We also perform twice a year disaster recovery tests.

Incentivized

PostgreSQL's availability is top notch. Apart from connection time-out for an idle user, the database is super reliable.

Incentivized

very easy to get started and is very developer friendly given that it uses couchDB analytics. It is a cloud based solution and hence there is no hardware investment in a server and staging the server to get started and the associated delays/bureaucracy involved to get started. Good documentation is also available.

Incentivized

The data queries are relatively quick for a small to medium sized table. With complex joins, and a wide and deep table however, the performance of the query has room for improvement.

Incentivized

Very happy by the commitment given by the team which has been really good over the last 7 years of usage.

Incentivized

There are several companies that you can contract for technical support, like EnterpriseDB or Percona, both first level in expertise and commitment to the software.

But we do not have contracts with them, we have done all the way from googling to forums, and never have a problem that we cannot resolve or pass around. And for dozens of projects and more than 15 years now.

Incentivized

online resources are good enough to understand but there is nothing like testing. In our case, we discovered some not documented behavior that we take in count now. Also, the experience in NodeJs is critical. Also, take in count that most of the "good practices" with cloudant are not in online courses but in blogs and pages from independent developers

Incentivized

The online training is request based. Had there been recorded videos available online for potential users to benefit from, I could have rated it higher. The online documentation however is very helpful. The online documentation PDF is downloadable and allows users to pace their own learning. With examples and code snippets, the documentation is great starting point.

Incentivized

• Test the architecture on CouchDB helped us to address initial design flaws.
• The migration to Cloudant as such was very painless.
• We have migrate our replication system to Cloudant Android Sync for mobile devices.
• We have regular informal contact with the Cloudant leadership to discuss our use cases and implementation strategies.

Incentivized

The online documentation of the PostgreSQL product is elaborate and takes users step by step.

Incentivized

MongoDB Atlas and Azure Cosmos DB are the closest competitors we found with Cloudant, especially in terms of fixed pricing and having a GUI for easy viewing and quick edits of data. Cloudant's pricing model flat out beats MongoDB Atlas' in terms of how easy it would be to predict costs. Cosmos DB is a much closer competitor, as it integrates well with Azure's stack similarly to Cloudant and the rest of the IBM Cloud stack; similar [throughout]-based pricing and replication options; and even the GUI and ease of query using SQL, which my team and I were more familiar with. Where Cloudant beats out Cosmos DB is again having a more simple pricing model (ops/sec vs Cosmos' "request units" voodoo) and being based on open-source software assuaging fears of vendor lock-in.

Incentivized

In my experience using all of these products over many years, PostgreSQL is better than any of them in reliability, performance, productivity, cost, scalability and interoperability across operating systems.

Incentivized

The service scales incredibly well. As you would expect from CloudDB and IBM combination. The only reason I wouldn't score it a 10 is the fact that document trees can get nested and nested very quickly if you are attempting to do very complex datasets. Which makes your code that much more complex to deal. Its very possible we could find a solution to this problem with better database planning to begin with, but one of the reasons we chose a service over a self-hosted solution was so we could set it up quick and forget about it. So we weren't going to dedicate a team to architecture optimization.

Incentivized

The DB is reliable, scalable, easy to use and resolves most DB needs

Incentivized

• Saving in-terms of cost of procuring and maintaining hardware, which will be realized over the next 5 years.
• Positive ROI in terms of the number of FTEs involved in maintaining our databases; our DBAs can now focus on other important and business critical applications.
• Best ROI in terms of our organization's vision - they are no longer anxious / nervous to move to the cloud. We are already on the CLOUD.

Incentivized

• A robust and reliable platform reduces the risk of data loss and confusion.
• Using an almost free product is economical. No license fees = minimal ownership cost.
• Efficiency is high due to quickness and excellent resource management.
• PostgreSQL helps us achieve our goals, and there are no time-consuming management tasks.