IBM Cloud Databases vs. MongoDB vs. Redis Software

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Cloud Databases
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cloud Databases are open source data stores for enterprise application development. Built on a Kubernetes foundation, they offer a database platform for serverless applications. They are designed to scale storage and compute resources seamlessly without being constrained by the limits of a single server. Natively integrated and available in the IBM Cloud console, these databases are now available through a consistent consumption, pricing, and interaction model. They aim to provide a cohesive…N/A
MongoDB
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
MongoDB is an open source document-oriented database system. It is part of the NoSQL family of database systems. Instead of storing data in tables as is done in a "classical" relational database, MongoDB stores structured data as JSON-like documents with dynamic schemas (MongoDB calls the format BSON), making the integration of data in certain types of applications easier and faster.
$0.10
million reads
Redis Software
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Redis is an open source in-memory data structure server and NoSQL database.N/A
Pricing
IBM Cloud DatabasesMongoDBRedis Software
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Shared
$0
per month
Serverless
$0.10million reads
million reads
Dedicated
$57
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cloud DatabasesMongoDBRedis Software
Free Trial
NoYesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsFully managed, global cloud database on AWS, Azure, and GCP
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Cloud DatabasesMongoDBRedis Software
Considered Multiple Products
IBM Cloud Databases
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
I tried MLab and was not a fan of how the UI worked on their control panel. It felt outdated and cumbersome. They offered less backup solutions for the price point as well. In fact, you had to contact them with a ticket if you wanted access to a daily backup. Anything over that …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
MongoDB is the primary db we use, and Meteor is the primary application framework. Configuring MongoDB to fully support Meteor oplog tailing is a challenge - and when we started looking, Compose was those only MongoDB provider that had turnkey support for Meteor.

Since we wanted …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
We previously hosted our own Redis and RabbitMQ cluster. Before switching to IBM Compose we evaluated Redis Lab, Scalegrid, AWS ElastiCache, CloudAMQP and others. We still host our core database (MongoDB) ourselves.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
All our databases are hosted on Compose. We haven't seen a reason to switch providers, however, we have compared with some others and Compose seems to be the best from a cost and reliability standpoint.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
Solr was not available on Compose and had to be hosted internally
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
Compose has the best interface for viewing data. Others have better pricing. Atlas has best metrics.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
It is pretty much the same only Compose offers many more database types.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
We evaluated several DBaaS providers, the thing that won out for Compose was its GUI which makes working with the database very easy.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
While at the time, Amazon RDS did/does not create Mongo databases, I was able to set up many with PostgreSQL databases with the same ease as IBM Compose. However, IBM compose does seem to offer a more intuitive application control panel. Amazon RDS costs run on a server …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
We selected Compose because we initially thought that they would provide great support, and that they would bring encryption at rest within months. That has not materialized yet.

We also thought that the cost, while far from being the lowest, was reasonable.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
Aiven backup options are very limited (you can't download backups and you don't have an API) and their dashboard is incomplete and without an optimal design; but they accept way more data centers, and they have more pricing options.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
It was very easy to set up at the time with a few clicks to get a database set up and hooked into Heroku, one of the PaaS-s we're using.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
We use Amazon Aurora as our primary datastore and use IBM Compose Mongo as an alternative only when Aurora does not cover the use case well. Amazon DynamoDB looks good but doesn't have the same wealth of libraries and support which makes MongoDB easy to use and therefore was …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
We have one instance of mLab that has been equally easy to scale as Compose, but with the added benefit of extensive logging and performance monitoring tools, including an index suggester. All modern cloud db providers seem to offer more of this type of functionality at this …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
Compose has great scalability and had a good price when we decided to launch our product.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
Other options are lower priced, however IBM Compose has by far the best interface for managing and editing data within the database. It also has many forms of databases for us to deploy, beyond what we are currently using. So, in the event we need to add other services, we can …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
IBM Compose pricing is far more clear than Azure and Amazon. The web user interface is also very clear and simple.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
We initially selected IBM Compose because it was easy to use and cost-effective. We switched to mLab when we need to scale and have dedicated clusters.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
It feels very similar but Compose was there first. I haven't used MongoDB Atlas in anger yet but it does seem to be more comprehensive.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
We currently use both Heroku and Compose. Heroku is our PAAS choice for our application servers. As mentioned, previously, the cost of some compose services for development / staging / testing servers was getting costly. For these type of servers we don't need the high …
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
Mongo Atlas - at the moment it looks better. It has 3.6 (Compose stuck at 3.4). Lower pricing (it seems).
AWS Dynamo DB etc - I decided rather quickly not to use this, mostly for lack of adequate documentation.
Chose IBM Cloud Databases
It has been a very long time, but at the time, Compose's customer support was incredible compared to MongoLab.
MongoDB
Chose MongoDB
In our early development days we weighed NoSQL databases like MongoDB with RDBMS solutions like MySQL. We were more familiar with MySQL from past experience but also were wary of painful data migrations that slowed down development iterations and increased the risk of outages …
Chose MongoDB
I just felt MongoDB was easier to use and more cost-effective. Aggregation pipelines are great.
Chose MongoDB
MongoDB is our go-to database solution for any project, and the more we work with it the more we love it. Some say that NoSQL is pointless... Our developers wholeheartedly disagree, because they love working with it. Though both NoSQL and SQL have their purposes, in most …
Chose MongoDB
The way MongoDB handles the data is unique and the indexing of data is powerful.
Chose MongoDB
MySQL is a great for querying related data, but it's unable to store structured data and has a fixed schema. Also SQL can be non-intuitive. DynamoDB, CouchDB and Redis all make querying the data quite difficult and lack important features. The problem CouchDB tries to solve is …
Chose MongoDB
MongoDB is document oriented, and fits our goals best.
Redis Software
Chose Redis Software
Initially, we were unsure whether to use Redis or MongoDB., in reality, they are both no-SQL databases but can be used both as needed. certainly, in my opinion, it is more reasonable a DB no SQL MongoDB than Redis, the key logic value of Redis is certainly performing for the …
Chose Redis Software
Redis is great at set operations and is very fast. Riak is a fast long-term data store, but it is expensive to run. MongoDB is good for small, quick projects. Elasticsearch is great at indexing and searching. Choose the right tool for the job, and don't be afraid to …
Chose Redis Software
Redis was initially in the list of competitors like Aerospike, Cassandra, MongoDB.The major point that outset all others is that it provides a number of read and writes to the database that no one can match. Another major factor is Redis really knows the basic components that …
Chose Redis Software
Couchbase doesn't keep up with what they offer and what really does.
MongoDB just doesn't scale out, reads are performed across multiple nodes but writes still go to the single master.
DynamoDB is good overall but just way too expensive.
Chose Redis Software
We have also done lot of research over NoSQL databases to find what is a good fit for our application. We finally decided to use Redis because:
  1. It requires very minimal hardware to set up.
  2. Supports key-value structure.
Chose Redis Software
Every time you don't need a document DB, you can't go wrong with Redis over MongoDB.
Google Cloud Pub/Sub may have solved one use case, but we'd still have to deploy Redis instances for other use cases, and adding another tech stack would only add complexity to our …
Chose Redis Software
Redis is faster, provides documents JSON-wise with the proper odule and it is far more stable than MongoDB (we had really bad experiences with Mongo, especially when ops tends to increase).
Chose Redis Software
All are good products. MongoDB is a great NoSQL DB but didn't seem to have the high performance caching of Redis. Coherence and Xtreme Scale are expensive. In my opinion for our particular use case, Redis was the clear winner.
Chose Redis Software
We divide projects between Redis and Elasticsearch Service. In some parts or modules one of these two databases fit better than the other.
Chose Redis Software
We initially used Memcached for some of the caching and locking solutions we now use Redis for; we found that for the purposes of our system Memcache could not match up to Redis for performance. We also found Redis to be a bit more reliable, but that could have just been down …
Chose Redis Software
We are big users of MySQL and PostgreSQL. We were looking at replacing our aging web page caching technology and found that we could do it in SQL, but there was a NoSQL movement happening at the time. We dabbled a bit in the NoSQL scene just to get an idea of what it was about …
Chose Redis Software
We initially tried ElastiCache with Redis hosting. While it did the job of running Redis, we still had to deal with server sizing. We switched to Redis Cloud since that had auto-scaling and easy to use tools.
Chose Redis Software
Actually, our CouchDB usage has been testimonial, so I can't do a good comparison.
Chose Redis Software
One key feature: easy to use. you can install and use it under minutes. For the rest of the options, you have to do more configuration and settings. Besides all these, Redis is in-memory so the performance is a blast. Considering that simple is better, the proof of the concept …
Chose Redis Software
Redis is easy to get setup, has great documentaiton, and quality online support. Antirez is constantly making feature updates the product, and is engaged with the community. Redis doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, but what features it does has are well implemented and …
Features
IBM Cloud DatabasesMongoDBRedis Software
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cloud Databases
7.3
94 Ratings
15% below category average
MongoDB
-
Ratings
Redis Software
-
Ratings
Automatic software patching8.577 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Database scalability9.988 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated backups7.091 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Database security provisions9.084 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics4.088 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic host deployment5.369 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
NoSQL Databases
Comparison of NoSQL Databases features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cloud Databases
-
Ratings
MongoDB
10.0
39 Ratings
12% above category average
Redis Software
8.6
70 Ratings
3% below category average
Performance00 Ratings10.039 Ratings9.070 Ratings
Availability00 Ratings10.039 Ratings7.070 Ratings
Concurrency00 Ratings10.039 Ratings9.069 Ratings
Security00 Ratings10.039 Ratings8.064 Ratings
Scalability00 Ratings10.039 Ratings9.070 Ratings
Data model flexibility00 Ratings10.039 Ratings9.063 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility00 Ratings10.038 Ratings9.063 Ratings
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IBM Cloud DatabasesMongoDBRedis Software
Small Businesses
IBM Cloudant
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Score 7.4 out of 10
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Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
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Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
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Score 7.4 out of 10
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Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloudant
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Score 7.4 out of 10
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Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
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Score 7.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Cloud DatabasesMongoDBRedis Software
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(96 ratings)
10.0
(79 ratings)
8.0
(76 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(7 ratings)
10.0
(67 ratings)
8.7
(12 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(7 ratings)
10.0
(15 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(10 ratings)
9.6
(13 ratings)
8.7
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(2 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Cloud DatabasesMongoDBRedis Software
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
Less Appropriate Scenario: 1) Small Scale or Low Budget Projects 2) Organizations with limited expertise in cloud technologies may find the learning curve steep, especially if they are not familiar with the IBM Cloud platform 3) If database requirements are highly dynamic and change frequently, the comprehensive features and management provided by IBM Cloud Databases might be overkill. A more flexible, self-managed solution could be preferable for adapting to rapid changes.
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MongoDB
If asked by a colleague I would highly recommend MongoDB. MongoDB provides incredible flexibility and is quick and easy to set up. It also provides extensive documentation which is very useful for someone new to the tool. Though I've used it for years and still referenced the docs often. From my experience and the use cases I've worked on, I'd suggest using it anywhere that needs a fast, efficient storage space for non-relational data. If a relational database is needed then another tool would be more apt.
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Redis
Redis has been a great investment for our organization as we needed a solution for high speed data caching. The ramp up and integration was quite easy. Redis handles automatic failover internally, so no crashes provides high availability. On the fly scaling scale to more/less cores and memory as and when needed.
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Pros
IBM
  • The ease of setup was effortless. For anyone with development experience, a few simple questions such as name and login data will get you set up.
  • The web application to manage cluster settings, billing settings and even introspect the data was simple and most importantly worked all the time. This can not always be said for web interfaces of other products.
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MongoDB
  • Being a JSON language optimizes the response time of a query, you can directly build a query logic from the same service
  • You can install a local, database-based environment rather than the non-relational real-time bases such a firebase does not allow, the local environment is paramount since you can work without relying on the internet.
  • Forming collections in Mango is relatively simple, you do not need to know of query to work with it, since it has a simple graphic environment that allows you to manage databases for those who are not experts in console management.
Read full review
Redis
  • Easy for developers to understand. Unlike Riak, which I've used in the past, it's fast without having to worry about eventual consistency.
  • Reliable. With a proper multi-node configuration, it can handle failover instantly.
  • Configurable. We primarily still use Memcache for caching but one of the teams uses Redis for both long-term storage and temporary expiry keys without taking on another external dependency.
  • Fast. We process tens of thousands of RPS and it doesn't skip a beat.
Read full review
Cons
IBM
  • Better cost reports, before just increasing to another tier, thus increasing the price. This is critical for early stage startups, where budget is tight.
  • Add more data center options. As a comparison, a similar service, Aiven.io has dozen more options than Compose (basically all big cloud providers). We moved from AWS to Digital Ocean, which made us stop using Compose, since Compose forces us to be either on IBM or AWS.
Read full review
MongoDB
  • An aggregate pipeline can be a bit overwhelming as a newcomer.
  • There's still no real concept of joins with references/foreign keys, although the aggregate framework has a feature that is close.
  • Database management/dev ops can still be time-consuming if rolling your own deployments. (Thankfully there are plenty of providers like Compose or even MongoDB's own Atlas that helps take care of the nitty-gritty.
Read full review
Redis
  • We had some difficulty scaling Redis without it becoming prohibitively expensive.
  • Redis has very simple search capabilities, which means its not suitable for all use cases.
  • Redis doesn't have good native support for storing data in object form and many libraries built over it return data as a string, meaning you need build your own serialization layer over it.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
IBM
IBM is our trusted partner which never failed to meet our expectations. Stability, efficiency, usability and security is a must have for our business which is fully provided by IBM Cloud Databases
Read full review
MongoDB
I am looking forward to increasing our SaaS subscriptions such that I get to experience global replica sets, working in reads from secondaries, and what not. Can't wait to be able to exploit some of the power that the "Big Boys" use MongoDB for.
Read full review
Redis
We will definitely continue using Redis because: 1. It is free and open source. 2. We already use it in so many applications, it will be hard for us to let go. 3. There isn't another competitive product that we know of that gives a better performance. 4. We never had any major issues with Redis, so no point turning our backs.
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Usability
IBM
IBM Cloud Databases' pricing structure is easy to understand, and if you choose the right product, you can operate your system at minimal cost. Although there is ample documentation available, there doesn't seem to be a user community running on it, so specific usage know-how and troubleshooting can sometimes take longer than expected.
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MongoDB
NoSQL database systems such as MongoDB lack graphical interfaces by default and therefore to improve usability it is necessary to install third-party applications to see more visually the schemas and stored documents. In addition, these tools also allow us to visualize the commands to be executed for each operation.
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Redis
It is quite simple to set up for the purpose of managing user sessions in the backend. It can be easily integrated with other products or technologies, such as Spring in Java. If you need to actually display the data stored in Redis in your application this is a bit difficult to understand initially but is possible.
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Support Rating
IBM
Support is helpful enough, but we haven't always had questions answered in a satisfactory manner. At one time we realized that Compose had stopped taking database snapshots on its two-per-day schedule, and had in fact not taken one for many days. Support recognized the problem and it was fixed, but the lack of proactive checks and the inability to share exactly what happened has caused us to look elsewhere for production work loads
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MongoDB
Finding support from local companies can be difficult. There were times when the local company could not find a solution and we reached a solution by getting support globally. If a good local company is found, it will overcome all your problems with its global support.
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Redis
The support team has always been excellent in handling our mostly questions, rarely problems. They are responsive, find the solution and get us moving forward again. I have never had to escalate a case with them. They have always solved our problems in a very timely manner. I highly commend the support team.
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Implementation Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
MongoDB
While the setup and configuration of MongoDB is pretty straight forward, having a vendor that performs automatic backups and scales the cluster automatically is very convenient. If you do not have a system administrator or DBA familiar with MongoDB on hand, it's a very good idea to use a 3rd party vendor that specializes in MongoDB hosting. The value is very well worth it over hosting it yourself since the cost is often reasonable among providers.
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Redis
Whitelisting of the AWS lambda functions.
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
The reason why I choose IBM Cloud Databases is that the IBM cloud toolset is already being used in other functions of the company and by using IBM Cloud Databases, the other cloud tools are better embedded and integrated. If the company is set to use amazon tools, I would go for rds.
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MongoDB
We have [measured] the speed in reading/write operations in high load and finally select the winner = MongoDBWe have [not] too much data but in case there will be 10 [times] more we need Cassandra. Cassandra's storage engine provides constant-time writes no matter how big your data set grows. For analytics, MongoDB provides a custom map/reduce implementation; Cassandra provides native Hadoop support.
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Redis
We are big users of MySQL and PostgreSQL. We were looking at replacing our aging web page caching technology and found that we could do it in SQL, but there was a NoSQL movement happening at the time. We dabbled a bit in the NoSQL scene just to get an idea of what it was about and whether it was for us. We tried a bunch, but I can only seem to remember Mongo and Couch. Mongo had big issues early on that drove us to Redis and we couldn't quite figure out how to deploy couch.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • Prove use cases prior to administering entire platform, obtain ROI faster
  • Able to achieve the technological components of our advanced analytics team without full scale purchase of AI platform
  • Developed several studies to prove out cloud Db value, speed to deploy
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MongoDB
  • Open Source w/ reasonable support costs have a direct, positive impact on the ROI (we moved away from large, monolithic, locked in licensing models)
  • You do have to balance the necessary level of HA & DR with the number of servers required to scale up and scale out. Servers cost money - so DR & HR doesn't come for free (even though it's built into the architecture of MongoDB
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Redis
  • Redis has helped us increase our throughput and server data to a growing amount of traffic while keeping our app fast. We couldn't have grown without the ability to easily cache data that Redis provides.
  • Redis has helped us decrease the load on our database. By being able to scale up and cache important data, we reduce the load on our database reducing costs and infra issues.
  • Running a Redis node on something like AWS can be costly, but it is often a requirement for scaling a company. If you need data quickly and your business is already a positive ROI, Redis is worth the investment.
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ScreenShots

MongoDB Screenshots

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Redis Software Screenshots

Screenshot of Database configurationScreenshot of Database metricsScreenshot of DatabasesScreenshot of NodesScreenshot of Alerts