Item: Couchbase Server
Rating: 10
Author: Alex Cavnar

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it primarily when a fast, scalable database solution is required. This is critical in time sensitive operations. Given the focus placed on N1QL, it makes picking up by traditional SQL developers easier.

Pros and Cons

Ease of adoption
Speed
Ease of configuration

Analytics need to have time-series features to compete with OLAP solutions

Return on Investment

Faster development
More scalable
New platform for developers to learn always increases ramp-up time
Excellent support staff

Scalability

The product makes it ridiculously easy to add new nodes and configure them for either a specific role or to use them for all roles. Rebalancing is transparent with no downtime.

Performance

Couchbase is one of the fastest platforms I've used. Its eventually consistent, memory resident architecture is inherently fast, and every new version is full of performance improvements. Plus, since nodes can be added to fulfill certain roles (query nodes, indexers, data nodes), you can tune your cluster to your workload.

Alternatives Considered

MongoDB, MarkLogic, Redis, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server

It's reliable. It's been the easiest to use NoSQL solution. Less overhead than standard SQL products.

Likelihood to Recommend

Couchbase is great for any general purpose situation, especially when speed and availability is a concern. If your data model changes frequently or is heavily unstructured, Couchbase is great.

However, if you need schema validation or enforcement, it lags behind, because that's not the point of the database. Also, because N1QL relies heavily on indexes, I wouldn't recommend it if you plan to do a lot of ad-hoc queries on your production data, as enabling the general index on a production server is not recommended.

Excellent, fast, scalable data platform

Overall Satisfaction with Couchbase Data Platform