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https://dudodiprj2sv7.cloudfront.net/product-logos/ip/iY/Q4R1N0JSL1HA.PNGHosted postgresql/redis/rabbitmq on composeWe need managed MongoDB service.,Simplifies/eliminate the need to administer database services Scalability when you need it, very easy to increase service limit/size/etc. Easy out of the box backups,Cost for smaller deployments. Running minimal instances of redis, mongo, postgresql costs more than ordering a simple VM and installing youself. Managed services sometimes lack plugins (eg custom postgresql, rabbitmq extensions for specialized tasks).,9,Allowed us to quickly setup PoC demo environment of a platform of ours,Apache SolrThe best option if you want to move to production fast, while keeping your data safe and always availableWe were using Compose PostgreSQL and Compose Redis as the data source for all of our stack. We have a messaging sequencer platform, a bot engine platform and Compose Redis was used as a session store and message sequencer and PostgreSQL as the transactional and permanent store.,Instant setup: configuring and setting up a production environment for PostgreSQL can be an expensive and time consuming task, with Compose we just clicked "new instance". Backups: same as instant setup - no need to worry about creating a backup flow. Backups are always available in the Compose dashboard and also accessible via an API for additional storage (i.e. move to S3) High Availability: harder than setting up backup and monitoring, is setting up HA for PostgreSQL, since it doesn't have it out of the box, and there aren't official tools. Compose abstracts the setup putting multiple instances behind HAProxy, and your application doesn't even have to worry about changing instances. Scaling,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.,10,Instant production environment data setup, without the need to invest days preparing the setup. Immediate positive ROI on this. Negative impact: we had to use a more expensive cloud provider (AWS), because Compose wasn't present in Digital Ocean (cheaper and transparent). After some time, we stopped using Compose because we moved back to Digital Ocean.,Aiven,PostgreSQL, RedisSmall dev teams will LOVE Compose!We started using Compose because we were looking for a RethinkDB provider. Although we eventually stopped using RethinkDB and migrated the app to MongoDB, our experience with Compose was great and we stuck with Compose. The databases power internal back-office apps that are used by the whole company. We have a small development team and using Compose let us quickly and easily setup new deployments and access/manage existing deployments using their GUI, saving us time and letting the engineering focus on writing code - not managing servers.,Creating production-ready deployments is easy The database consoles are intuitive and easy to use for new users Creating and restoring backups is easy Migrating data between deployments is done through the GUI,Hosted version lacks integration with corporate Single Sign On (SSO) Doesn't offer Kafka deployments,10,Being able to use Compose has saved us about 0.2 FTE of developer time managing db deployments manually. Support for SSL and encryption made our NIST / ISO infosec compliance a lot easier.,Apache Kafka, Amazon Relational Database Service, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL,Apache Kafka, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Google Cloud Storage, Jitterbit, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Infor CloudSuite Business, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Microsoft Azure, LogglyCompose.io is pretty good!My client uses IBM Compose to power their startup presentation software. Their application is built on meteor.js which uses Mongo DB as it's primary data store. They needed something reliable, fast and scalable, so we went with IBM Compose. Compose was incredibly easy to set up, and billing is straightforward, easy to understand.,Easy to set up. Scaling is easy to configure. Solid reliability.,It'd be nice if there was an easier way to set up a low cost or free testing or staging environment to match with the production environment. A "clone to staging" feature would be amazing.,10,We're still working on that. ;-),mlab,Google Analytics, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), MongoDBDoing MongoDB the easy way with ComposeWe use Compose for both Mongo databases and Redis databases. For each type of database, we run development, test, and production instances. Basically, it lets me have a very robust database without having a DBA or Dev Ops team.,Easy to create a database within a few minutes. Particularly nice if you just need one for a few hours. Very easy to copy data from one instance to another. Backups are automatic; do not impact system performance when they happen and are very quick and easy to restore.,I find some of the documentation to be a little vague and not clearly versioned or time-stamped. As an example, you needed a particular version of the Node Mongo driver to use the connection string with multiple load balancer addresses. The documentation said that "older versions may not work" or words to that effect but was not specific about which one did work.,9,The cost for a service with this level of reliability has been outstanding. The one time that we had an issue, which was back when the product was still MongoHQ, they credited us with a month of service to make things right even though the problem really had minimal impact on our business.
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IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose)
140 Ratings
Score 8.1 out of 101
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IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose)
140 Ratings
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Score 8.1 out of 101
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October 04, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Hosted postgresql/redis/rabbitmq on compose"

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We need managed MongoDB service.
  • Simplifies/eliminate the need to administer database services
  • Scalability when you need it, very easy to increase service limit/size/etc.
  • Easy out of the box backups
  • Cost for smaller deployments. Running minimal instances of redis, mongo, postgresql costs more than ordering a simple VM and installing youself.
  • Managed services sometimes lack plugins (eg custom postgresql, rabbitmq extensions for specialized tasks).
If you need fast/simple scalable and redundant setup for postgres/rabbitmq, Compose is much simpler than building a similar solution on your own.
Read this authenticated review
Alfred Reinold Baudisch profile photo
March 09, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "The best option if you want to move to production fast, while keeping your data safe and always available"

Alfred Reinold Baudisch
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We were using Compose PostgreSQL and Compose Redis as the data source for all of our stack. We have a messaging sequencer platform, a bot engine platform and Compose Redis was used as a session store and message sequencer and PostgreSQL as the transactional and permanent store.
  • Instant setup: configuring and setting up a production environment for PostgreSQL can be an expensive and time consuming task, with Compose we just clicked "new instance".
  • Backups: same as instant setup - no need to worry about creating a backup flow. Backups are always available in the Compose dashboard and also accessible via an API for additional storage (i.e. move to S3)
  • High Availability: harder than setting up backup and monitoring, is setting up HA for PostgreSQL, since it doesn't have it out of the box, and there aren't official tools. Compose abstracts the setup putting multiple instances behind HAProxy, and your application doesn't even have to worry about changing instances.
  • Scaling
  • 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.
Well suited:
  • Quick launch of a product into a production environment.
  • Cutting the neeed for a dedicated DBA/devops focused on the DB.
Less appropriate: When you have a very tight budget. Stick to setting up instances manually, without HA, etc.
Read Alfred Reinold Baudisch's full review
Carlo Quiñonez profile photo
February 22, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Small dev teams will LOVE Compose!"

Carlo Quiñonez
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We started using Compose because we were looking for a RethinkDB provider. Although we eventually stopped using RethinkDB and migrated the app to MongoDB, our experience with Compose was great and we stuck with Compose. The databases power internal back-office apps that are used by the whole company. We have a small development team and using Compose let us quickly and easily setup new deployments and access/manage existing deployments using their GUI, saving us time and letting the engineering focus on writing code - not managing servers.
  • Creating production-ready deployments is easy
  • The database consoles are intuitive and easy to use for new users
  • Creating and restoring backups is easy
  • Migrating data between deployments is done through the GUI
  • Hosted version lacks integration with corporate Single Sign On (SSO)
  • Doesn't offer Kafka deployments
If you have a small development team that working with one of the support Compose products, it's a great fit. We've been working on the product for 2 yrs now and we're just now getting to the point where the cost/benefit of the managed vs. self-hosted approach is even worth considering.

However, if your tech stack includes a product Compose doesn't offer (like Apache Kafka for instance) it means that you'll either need to find a different provider for those services or manage that portion of the tech stack yourself. It's a minor problem, but the only negative thing I have to say about Compose.
Read Carlo Quiñonez's full review
Kevin Newman profile photo
February 05, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Compose.io is pretty good!"

Kevin Newman
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
My client uses IBM Compose to power their startup presentation software. Their application is built on meteor.js which uses Mongo DB as it's primary data store. They needed something reliable, fast and scalable, so we went with IBM Compose. Compose was incredibly easy to set up, and billing is straightforward, easy to understand.
  • Easy to set up.
  • Scaling is easy to configure.
  • Solid reliability.
  • It'd be nice if there was an easier way to set up a low cost or free testing or staging environment to match with the production environment. A "clone to staging" feature would be amazing.
If you need something fast, stable and reliable, and don't want to fiddle around too much with settings and docker images, compose is a great solution. It's easy to set up, and the control panel interface is well organized and full-featured. Billing statements match the ease of use of the control panel and are just as easy to understand.
Read Kevin Newman's full review
David Hart profile photo
March 13, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Doing MongoDB the easy way with Compose"

David Hart
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Compose for both Mongo databases and Redis databases. For each type of database, we run development, test, and production instances. Basically, it lets me have a very robust database without having a DBA or Dev Ops team.
  • Easy to create a database within a few minutes. Particularly nice if you just need one for a few hours.
  • Very easy to copy data from one instance to another.
  • Backups are automatic; do not impact system performance when they happen and are very quick and easy to restore.
  • I find some of the documentation to be a little vague and not clearly versioned or time-stamped. As an example, you needed a particular version of the Node Mongo driver to use the connection string with multiple load balancer addresses. The documentation said that "older versions may not work" or words to that effect but was not specific about which one did work.
I am a fan of database as a service, and if Compose supports the database that you want to use and the environment that you want to run in I would certainly give it a shot.
Read David Hart's full review
Juan Miret profile photo
March 12, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose): "Buscando Huellas Review of Compose"

Juan Miret
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
It is used to host the database of a web application to find lost dogs in Argentina. It's the main database of the company.
  • It's easy to set up and administrate
  • Automatic backups
  • Fast and secure without hassle
  • I'm really happy with the actual product and nothing comes to my mind that could improve it.
  • The best feature is... I set it up the first time and voila not used it much after that... which is good. It means it's easy and works well.
I think it's really good if you have a small team and don't want to waste time configuring, securing and backing up databases. The scenario where it is less appropriate is if you are on a budget.
Read Juan Miret's full review
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March 09, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Feels strange to have ever self-hosted Redis and RabbitMQ"

Dominik Hurnaus
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
As a young startup we wanted to focus on our core product and not be held back by infrastructure management and maintenance. This is why we moved our RabbitMQ and (persistent) Redis clusters to compose.io. We no longer have to provide servers, maintenance, monitoring, etc. for those parts of our infrastructure.
  • Robust Redis and RabbitMQ clusters with no downtime within the last 18 months.
  • With RabbitMQ, putting special policies on specific queues was not possible via the admin interface and required contacting their support (The support guys promptly configured those policies, though).
I would definitely recommend using IBM Compose for secondary storage systems or message queues, as the price-performance ratio is unbeatable. We compared quite a few providers and the price-performance ratio with IBM Compose was by far the best.
Read Dominik Hurnaus's full review
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March 09, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Compose is good but Amazon is better"

Juan Garnier
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Currently, we are using Compose to host our data which allows us to scale our sports data up pretty fast. We use MySQL and Mongo for real-time updates which users can see immediately on the front end. The data feed we get is the core of our business so it is very important.
  • Database options
  • Fast scaling
  • Security
  • Cost are not inline with Amazon or Google
  • Customer service is very slow and only done via email
  • Customer service usually doesn't solve the issue
Compose has horrible customer service which takes 1 to 3 business days for any type of response. This is the main drawback on whey we choose to go with Amazon since we can get an answer ASAP. I think Compose does great things with their products they just need phone support for these products.
Read Juan Garnier's full review
Andrew Raines profile photo
March 05, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Pretty solid MongoDB hosting"

Andrew Raines
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
It is used primarily to store/retrieve sports feed data by our APIs so that we can make the data available to our users via the mobile apps. It allows us to query data in a way we cannot within MySQL (our primary data store) as we can store documents rather than having to normalise it.
  • Web interface is pretty good for basic querying, which means other tooling is not required.
  • Being able to rely on Infrastructure as a Service means we don't have to spend time looking after this system ourselves.
  • Upgrading Mongo instances can be a little troublesome depending on the version upgrade being done. In the end we had to resort to doing this ourselves via command line scripts because the online interface was not capable.
  • The web interface, particularly for querying, is a little slow.
If you want a IaaS Mongo set up, it is certainly a good solution. It isn't the cheapest way of getting Mongo as a datastore, but it does come with high availability and a lot of the hassle taken away from you.
Read Andrew Raines's full review
Terry Drozdowski profile photo
March 05, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Decent DBaas Platform"

Terry Drozdowski
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are using the Mongo DB cloud deployments and Redis for all our application development architecture. We started using Compose well before it was acquired by IBM. Applications developed include anything we do to support the business and customers.
  • Compose is reliable. Zero problems with DB stability or being down due to some outage.
  • The console is a great tool for exploring your database - from its contents to admin information such as connections and cpu load.
  • All the admin tools you need to get stuff done work really well.
  • Super easy to clone a new DB for development or support to test an issue w/on it interfering with production.
  • UX could be improved. Takes quite a few links to navigate through deployments to individual databases.
  • A free form query window would be really nice. At least for mongo it’s limited to the collection your viewing Would be nice to be able to change as necessary.
  • Integration with third-party DevOps tools like Datadog and SignalFX would be really nice.
Rapid prototyping. Great for small teams without a budget for a DBA.
Read Terry Drozdowski's full review
Kennedy Clayton profile photo
March 05, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "IBM Compose is great!"

Kennedy Clayton
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use the product to time code the transcripts for our videos. This is extremely helpful since it is an automatic system now. It's decreased the manual effort we've had to put in, as well as decreased the wait time for video and transcript analysis. Our clients love how quick the process is!
  • Speed of delivery
  • Accuracy
  • None I can think of
We find it most useful in the automatic processing (API work) it does for our company. That's the process that most effects my team and myself - we no longer have to send off things automatically and it is far quicker for our clients to receive as well.
Read Kennedy Clayton's full review
Kai Virkki profile photo
March 05, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "IBM Compose, an awesome service for running cloud databases"

Kai Virkki
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are using IBM Compose to host several of our databases that are an integral part of our service. We are using both different databases and messaging services that Compose has to offer. By using IBM Compose, we're able to concentrate more on solving the business problems for our customers and leaving most of the database maintenance and hosting work to a company that has totally dedicated to just those things and doing them awesomely.
  • IBM Compose has managed to create a service with all the related automation and monitoring around it that makes it possible to have reliable and highly available databases running in the cloud.
  • Compose support is great and very professional, but still keeping a personal touch to it.
  • IBM Compose isn't just a one trick pony, there's support to a wealth of different popular databases and messaging services, so you can have most if not all of your DB needs covered by a single provider.
  • As IBM Compose is adding more and more databases that it supports, they might not have been able to move as quickly as before on supporting the latest versions of certain databases, like for example MongoDB.
  • More options for storing DB backups would be great. For example possibility to get Compose to send them to customer's S3 bucket. And option to select what tables/collections to have in the backup would be nice for those cases where certain data is more or less ephemeral and not essential when restoring from a backup.
  • Shrinking down a MongoDB instance's storage after deleting a lot of data is a pain! This is mostly due to how MongoDB is built, but Compose could figure out a simple to use interface for doing this by push of a button.
I think the sweet spot for Compose are startups who should concentrate more on development and less on DB maintenance. They usually also have smaller DBs which are more manageable on Compose. There is an Enterprise option to have the DBs running on your own cloud setup, so that gives more options to bigger companies, though.
Read Kai Virkki's full review
Matt Dunbar profile photo
March 02, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Compose- Highly Recommended"

Matt Dunbar
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We rely on elastic search for licensed technology we host for clients. It's the one piece of the infrastructure our internal team doesn't have extensive experience with.

Even though it's the place where we have the least experience, it's also the place where we run into the least challenges. I can count on one hand how often it has had an outage, and we've literally never had server / configuration issues.
  • Easy-to-use
  • Elasticsearch hosting
  • I don't have any further recommendations at this time- Compose just works for us!
I'd imagine there will be some limitations on in depth customization of elasticsearch- but we haven't run into them yet.

It also might be a bit expensive for running at a large scale vs hosting your own cluster.
Read Matt Dunbar's full review
Joshua Dickson profile photo
February 26, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose): "Compose Review"

Joshua Dickson
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Compose extensively to host our application's database layer which is implemented in MongoDB. MongoDB from Compose helps us in two ways: first of all, it removed significant overhead in having to think about monitoring and maintaining our database systems. Compose also has excellent GIU tools (though they can be a bit slow with large queries) for working with MongoDB.
  • Database-Interaction GUI best we've worked with
  • Service has been reliable
  • Pricing Is low enough to not think about hosting our own DB layer
  • Customer service has been lacking at times
  • Technical issues: backups have not always happened on schedule, and customer data has been lost
  • Pricing for follow-on GBs is high
It very much depends on use case. For cases with small DBs, or for cases where ease of management is more important than cost, it's a great option. It's also a great starter for people who have not used Mongo and can make use of the GUI tools.
Read Joshua Dickson's full review
Tyler Johnson profile photo
February 23, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "You Can Trust Compose to Handle your Data!"

Tyler Johnson
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use IBM Compose MongoDB servers for one of our web-based software products. It allows us to focus on improving the product and not worry about whether our data is secure and accessible by our clients. This software is used in an on-premise/dedicated instance fashion, so the MongoDB servers are used by multiple instances of the software. We can continue to expand while using IBM Compose to host our data.
  • Regular backups of our data
  • Multiple access points for higher availability
  • Wonderful web-based GUI for accessing and modifying data
  • Powerful server instances with enough dedicated RAM to handle any load thrown at it
  • Specific control over the amount of RAM and storage being used
  • High priced versus some competitors
  • CouchDB support
For the size of our application and the amount of use that it gets, IBM Compose fits us quite well. We see tens of thousands of visitors on our site, and this translates to low/moderate impact on the database. In the event that we need to scale beyond this however, the pricing will quickly grow to be unreasonable.
Read Tyler Johnson's full review
Mohamad Nabaa profile photo
February 23, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "No Worries with Compose"

Mohamad Nabaa
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are using IBM Compose for :
- PostGres: We retain and compute Location Data and queries.
- MongoDB: We retain system logs.
- MySQL: We retain user Data.

Scaling, backups clustering, and pricing were a problem from other competitors; this is where IBM killed the competition and helped us secure our data

It is being used across the whole technical solution and as a web service.
  • Pricing
  • Clustering
  • Scaling -> Load Balancers
  • Reduce need for human maintenance
  • Pricing has been increasing lately. IBM Compose is in much in need for a control panel and documentation
If a system admin wants to spend less time on setting up their infrastructure, IBM Compose comes in handy. You don't have to worry about scaling and load balancers, IBM Compose takes care of that in a very systematic way. Price even decreases the more the tiers increase.

We became so dependent on IBM Compose that we even migrated our sandbox servers to use its features.
Read Mohamad Nabaa's full review
Yann アウネ Eves profile photo
February 23, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "This remains my preferred database-as-a-service"

Yann アウネ Eves
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use IBM Compose as a critical component of our IT infrastructure for hosting a cluster of MongoDB instances. This enables us to store off-site user and application data with excellent performance and high availability. The range of options provided by IBM Compose allow us greater choice of technology versus competitors and the ability to instantly scale our offerings.
  • High availability database-as-a-service
  • Vast range of supported technologies
  • Ability to instantly scale resources
  • Menu options in the platform could be consolidated better
Based on my experience with IBM Compose, I continue to recommend it above every database-as-a-service I've had the opportunity to compare it with, and in most cases would also venture with this platform over self-hosting with, for example, AWS DynamoDB.
Read Yann アウネ Eves's full review
Jude Allred profile photo
February 22, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Solid choice for AaaS NoSQL hosting"

Jude Allred
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
IBM Compose is providing us with an Architecture-As-A-Service solution for persistent, highly-available NoSQL based data storage. We primarily use it to host data for our microservices and Glitch integrations. The ease of use in getting started and the ongoing low overhead of maintaining the product have been perfect. We haven't had a moment of trouble since starting to use the service.
  • Persistent data storage for microservices
  • Fast and easy, but secure, NoSQL storage for integrations and bots
  • Quick setup time, great for rapid prototypes which may graduate to real products and should thus start on a firm foundation.
Well suited for super-low-maintenance NoSQL data storage. Tons of applications just need a 'boring' data layer, meaning that it needs to be easy, fast, and resilient, but we won't be doing anything special with it: Compose is perfect for that. If a highly custom solution was needed (your data storage is the hard part of your application (...but really? _really_? it probably isn't.)), then you might go custom.

And of course if you want a relational database, Compose isn't for you.
Read Jude Allred's full review
Ian Segers profile photo
February 22, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Great service, certainly when you lack db operational expertise."

Ian Segers
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use IBM Compose for the production environment of our Saas solution. We use MongoDB for our back-end infrastructure. So basically this is a key part of our entire organization since we have one product that relies heavily on a database that is hosted by IBM compose. The business problem that is being solved is just basically that we can offer a persistent state of our service.
  • Automatic configuration of a replica set for MongoDB. I was set to go immediately with minding the configuration. So basically, without much prior knowledge, I was set up before I knew it with a production-ready mature database setup.
  • The support was very helpful and efficient when I had questions regarding an issue.
  • They provide important security features like 2FA authentication, which is almost mission critical for production databases with sensitive data.
  • Automatic backups and log files! Love it it, easy to find, easy to access.
  • Everything just works after setting up the database.
  • I would appreciate if there was some integration to auto-archive log files or backups to a Google Cloud Bucket, Amazon S3 or such. I personally would love to see Google Cloud Bucket integration.
  • I am not sure if this is technically feasible, but I'd like to be able to upgrade my MongoDB for example to a newer version. For example v3.4 or v3.6, while I am still running version 3.2. Technology is a quick field, so rolling out new versions and upgrading is an essential service.
The service works great in a production environment. It is although price wise, not very suitable for a small (temporary and permanent) test environment of a solution. But getting started with a production environment goes quick, without too much hassle, this is especially useful when you don't have strong database management skills in your team.
Read Ian Segers's full review
Joe Rzepiejewski profile photo
February 21, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "To Compose or Not Compose"

Joe Rzepiejewski
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use the redis and elasticsearch services. We utilize these by our application services platform. We do not have IT personnel (and don't plan to) thus we prefer hosted/"as a service" platforms/products. We may focus our energies and spend on our product development not IT operations.
  • Excellent Dashboard - easy to use and manage our services
  • Excellent Diagnostics - providing up to the second visibility into the status services
  • High Availability and redundancy is excellent.
  • Honestly - the only con could be cost vs. some other hosted solutions. But comparing apples to apples it's typically just a little higher premium above others.
For small companies, the cost could be prohibitive if they scale up in size. It has lead us to evaluate other solutions as in some instances we do not need the redundancy. Case in point is setting up staging/dev servers. For production servers where you need the high availability the service level is excellent.
Read Joe Rzepiejewski's full review
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February 21, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Best Database Engine"

Robson Hayashida
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Compose is great. Before it used to take a lot of time for me to manually set MongoDB on my servers. With Compose, I don't spend time setting anything because Compose is ready to be used. MongoDB on Compose is very stable and I am 100% satisfied with it. Moreover, I have never experienced any database issues since I have migrated to Compose.
  • No need to install MongoDB. It is already installed.
  • No need to waste our configuring MongoDB because Compose has already done most of the work.
  • The user interface of MongoDB on Compose is very intuitive and easy to use.
  • It could be cheaper
It is well suited for Meteor/MongoDB or any other environment that has MongoDB as the database server.
Read Robson Hayashida's full review
Guillermo Alvarado Mejía profile photo
February 21, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "DBaaS with Compose, the right choice"

Guillermo Alvarado Mejía
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and RabbitMQ with Compose and that allows us to focus on what we do best—building great apps. It provides us developer agility, DBA productivity, application reliability, performance, and security.
  • When a developer wishes to provision a database, the steps involved include provisioning compute, storage and networking components, configuring them properly and then installing database software...with Compose you can provision while in a DB environment in 3 steps.
  • Compose ensures that all databases are operated in the same way, and in keeping with the best practices established by the IT organization. This, frees up the developer and DBA to work on more important things like the application and innovation rather than the boring minutiae of running a database.
  • Once in operation, complex database operations like resizing a cluster are now a simple API call to Compose and the developer need not concern themselves with the minutiae of how this operation should be performed for the specific database and version.
  • Support more databases
  • Support DRP plans
  • Support Geo replication between datacenters
Less appropriate because you have total dependence on this service. Dependence on the provider - sometimes it is complicated to migrate from one cloud to another by the created dependencies. Also information is provided to a third-party.
Read Guillermo Alvarado Mejía's full review
Gennady Borukhovich profile photo
February 21, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Compose allows you to focus on your product, while they focus on your database."

Gennady Borukhovich
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Compose is our product's primary database for our production system. Occasionally, we use it for reporting. When we do that, we typically grab a recent backup to use for reporting purposes in a non-production environment.
  • Great maintenance of the database
  • Failover
  • Backups
  • Price. $18/GB is quite a lot of money for storage these days. I realize that we get additional service including backups, etc., but that level of service for similar services, such as Heroku have a much lower baseline cost. Storage these days is quite cheap and I would like to see a different pricing plan such as $50-$75/month for SSD & failsafe and $5/GB for additional storage. Something like that.
  • Support for legacy architectures. We're on the legacy architecture, and a few times now, we've been told that some issues are a low priority.I understand the need to move technology forward and to focus your teams, but the price hasn't gone down for me. I am very resource constrained and am unable to do the upgrade, but my business depends on the support that I am paying for.
Very broad range. I've used Compose when just starting out when it was just a MongoDB database. Now with Compose's broad offering of different database systems, it becomes a one-stop shop and grows with the products that we are building.
Read Gennady Borukhovich's full review
Leo van Snippenburg profile photo
February 20, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Real live with Compose"

Leo van Snippenburg
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use IBM Compose as a backend database (MongoDB) for several of our cloud services. As a hosted MongoDB service Compose allows us to run complex systems without spending a lot of time on system setup and maintenance. Backups and fault tolerance are directly available, both for production and for development databases. As an extra, security of the databases is well covered. The nuisance of IBM Compose is that it is at least a few versions behind the official MongoDB releases. This means we cannot directly use the latest features.
  • Easy to set up
  • Good tools for (local) backups
  • Great monitoring
  • API available
  • More frequent updates
From development to production Compose can be useful. We have only used the MongoDB services, but the other possibilities (MySQL, Redis) have certainly not been left unnoticed. We have just already hosted these services at other places.
Read Leo van Snippenburg's full review
Michael Masouras profile photo
January 31, 2018

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Review: "Fire-and-forget super stable deployments. Need cross-region replication/failover for true scale."

Michael Masouras
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use IBM Compose as a back-end storage for the content that drives our apps.
  • Setup and forget - so far. I never really had to tinker with my installation or perform any maintenance.
  • Support is pretty good, someone replied to my email request promptly and they were quite helpful in dealing with the emergency at hand (data loss due to application bug - not a Compose issue).
  • Quite decent admin UI.
  • The most substantial issue is lack of cross-region replication. My app only works well if the front-ends are sitting close to the Compose deployment (e.g. US-east). This will probably be a show-stopper down the road if not addressed.
  • Backups are daily, which is usually not enough for catastrophic scenarios. I don't feel safe knowing I might lose a day's worth of data if something goes wrong. Ideally, there should always be a backup that is only a few hours long at the latest.
  • The admin UI browser for browsing redis is a bit clunky, but that's a minor issue since reids-cli is enough.
Trivial setup of a managed redis instance in production for a very reasonable price.
Read Michael Masouras's full review

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (140)
8.1
Likelihood to Renew (2)
9.0
Usability (3)
8.7
Support (4)
7.0

Feature Scorecard Summary

Automatic software patching (53)
8.5
Database scalability (61)
8.6
Automated backups (65)
8.6
Database security provisions (57)
8.2
Monitoring and metrics (63)
6.8
Automatic host deployment (48)
8.8

About IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose)

IBM Cloud Databases are scalable, cost-efficient and readily usable open source data stores for enterprise application development. Built on a Kubernetes foundation, they offer an ideal database platform for serverless applications. They are able 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 provide a cohesive experience for developers that include access control, backup orchestration, encryption key management, auditing, monitoring, and logging.

Learn more about IBM Cloud Databases for PostgreSQL
Learn more about IBM Cloud Databases for Redis

See here for PostgreSQL pricing, Redis pricing, and support.
Categories:  Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS),  Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS)

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Features

Database-as-a-Service Features
Has featureAutomatic software patching
Has featureDatabase scalability
Has featureAutomated backups
Has featureDatabase security provisions
Has featureMonitoring and metrics
Has featureAutomatic host deployment

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Competitors

AWS RDS, AzureDB, GCP Cloud SQL

IBM Cloud Databases (formerly Compose) Technical Details

Operating Systems: Unspecified
Mobile Application:No