Couchbase works well, but isn't the only option
June 20, 2020
Couchbase works well, but isn't the only option
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Couchbase
Couchbase was chosen initially to solve the problem of global distribution of data for our authentication services. We wanted our auth data to replicate globally, be flexible, and easy to query. It also had to be fast so that we could quickly direct users to the correct data center where their data existed. Couchbase solved all those problems for us. It also included simple management consoles and automatics recovery when nodes became corrupt or went missing. It was used for this and several other products.
- Management of nodes is simple and requires minimal maintenance.
- The ability to query is flexible and the N1QL language is convenient, though it can have pitfalls.
- Replication provides great data resiliency, as well as speed and performance on a global scale.
- At large query volume, it can be difficult to scale. This is mostly due to user error, but the flexibility afforded makes these issues easy to slip through.
- The N1QL language, while convenient, obscures powerful features and hinders in-depth learning of the NoSQL principles.
- Couchbase is self-hosted, and as such, it required internal DevOps resources to maintain.
- Couchbase provided significantly faster transaction speeds for our authentication services.
- Global replication increased availability for our global customers.
- The data model flexibility removed the need for lengthy schema updates.
We built an employee scheduling and time & attendance WFM platform. Our platform reaches many countries outside the US, so we have used Couchbase for helping us scale parts of our applications globally. We also have a large mobile user base on both iOS and Android but have not used Couchbase Mobile.
Our application began experiencing bottlenecks. Couchbase was part of the global scaling strategy to improve performance, reduce the load, and scale our application closer to our users. We sought NoSQL (from MySQL) for the performance and data model flexibility. We chose Couchbase for the global replication aspect after evaluating several other options (MongoDB, Cassandra, and CouchDB).
Couchbase had more features than the other products we evaluated and a more flexible data model. It also has global replication and better performance. Compared to some, it was also easier to deploy, manage, and scale. The global replication, plus the ease of deploying and scaling, ultimately caused us to choose Couchbase.