Couchbase vs. PostgreSQL

Best suited when edge devices have interrupted internet connection. And Couchbase provides reliable data transfer. If used for attachment Couchbase has a very poor offering. A hard limit of 20 MB is not okay. They have the best conflict resolution but not so great query language on Couchbase lite.

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

• Easy to store unstructured data and has great performance
• Managing security is super easy which can be managed across different levels
• UI is pretty simple to use and manage the cluster
• Backup of the data is very easy and the restoration/recovery is fairly easy as well with the in-built tools.
• Easy integration with elasticsearch for replication
• It is fairly easy to scale up or scale down the cluster

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

• Cluster sizing during the design phase can be improved, especially if the client lacks prior experience. Vendor consultants are very meticulous in order to provide best of class performance and response time, although some more real-world pragmatic approach is often needed.
• Couchbase Lite 2 went thru a major revamp, which broke the compatibility of the applications with some features removed and other changed. That needed development teams working to refactor the applications.

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

I rarely actually use Couchbase Server, I just stay up-to-date with the features that it provides. However, when the need arises for a NoSQL datastore, then I will strongly consider it as an option

Incentivized

As a needed software for day to day development activities

Incentivized

Couchbase has been quite a usable for our implementation. We had similar experience with our previous "trial" implementation, however it was short lived.

Couchbase has so far exceeded expectation. Our implementation team is more confident than ever before.

When we are Live for more than 6 months, I'm hoping to enhance this rating.

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

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

Incentivized

One of Couchbase’s greatest assets is its performance with large datasets. Properly set up with well-sized clusters, it is also highly reliable and scalable. User management could be better though, and security often feels like an afterthought. Couchbase has improved tremendously since we started using it, so I am sure that these issues will be ironed out.

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

I haven't had many opportunities to request support, I will look forward to better the rating. We have technical development and integration team who reach out directly to TAM at Couchbase.

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

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

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

Incentivized

Couchbase could outperform it's competition considerably for database reads and writes. Full text searches were still faster in Elasticsearch but this is more of a feature than a base platform requirement for us.

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

So far, the way that we mange and upgrade our clusters has be very smooth. It works like a dream when we use it in concert with AWS and their EC2 machines. Having access to powerful instances along side the Couchbase interface is amazing and allows us to do rebalances or maintenance without a worry

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• There have been several areas of our application [that] really needed an ACID compliant database (e.g. strong transactional guarantees) that we thought we could work around while using Couchbase. [In my opinion] that turned out to be a poor bet. You need to be certain that the specific characteristics of a NoSQL database fit your problem.
• Couchbase does eliminate the need for schema upgrades completely. I.e no downtime or conversion windows as you migrate your data model, adding attributes, etc. This helped with the deployment timeframe associated with DB changes.
• The database is (apparently) a bit more of a space/memory consumer than originally anticipated. During deployments, we received constant pressure from Couchbase consulting teams to eliminate/reduce the number of indexes, and this was because any mutations to docs in a bucket must check for impact against all indexes. More recent years have started to address this with their "collections" features, which helps isolate indexes to specific sub-groupings of documents.

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.