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Is the latest mongodb native driver mature enough to use with for instance GridFS in a production environment or as specification in a large project?

Referring to http://mongodb.github.com/node-mongodb-native

I would like to consider the rapid changing conventions, as opposed to the maturity of the technology. In short, is it safe to select a version as specification for a high profile production environment?

My limited experience with the technology does not allow me to determine if it would be safe to use in a locked down specification scenario, or even version lock down as per long term support aka Ubuntu, where fix/security patches are OK as opposed to version changes.

Ones and Zeroes
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  • I considered providing links to discussions that could qualify my cause for concern, but I fear there are side topics which would detract from the question above. Fact is that one could replace either of the three legs in the following stack: node.js, mongodb & gridfs and the above question would be less of a question. So perhaps making the whole issue rhetorical - but hopefully not... I leave you with the question above, to stand on its own. – Ones and Zeroes Apr 23 '12 at 19:51
  • Anyone see [Microsoft Open Technologies](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2012/04/12/announcing-one-more-way-microsoft-will-engage-with-the-open-source-and-standards-communities.aspx). I'd like to know how to get their attention to the fact that the node mongodb native driver does not support reading windows originating text files from gridfs. The problem appears to be ignored by the node.js community. The c# driver does not have this problem. – Ones and Zeroes Apr 26 '12 at 20:35

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Yes. This driver is mature enough to use in production. It is being used in many high profile Node.js deployments already and supports a feature set on par with existing MongoDB drivers. It is also put through the same testing as other MongoDB drivers and performs sufficiently well.

On the MongoDB side there should not be any concern about rapidly changing conventions. The API has shown stability over the past few releases and hasn't introduced any breaking changes through many releases.

spf13
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  • It is one thing to say XYZ who is high profile uses it, so it must be good for everyone, but consider this: Cows have 4 legs, tables have 4 legs, so all tables must be cows... Please see christkv's response here [MongoDB GridFS - Is it filename or fileName](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10262858/mongodb-gridfs-is-it-filename-or-filename/10275997). He appears to be of the opinion that one has to always use the latest driver. And that the driver is perhaps not intended to use in conjunction with other platforms etc. – Ones and Zeroes Apr 24 '12 at 08:18
  • Sorry I cannot accept this answer since it does not address all three aspects of the question nl. node.js, mongodb and gridfs. I do like the second paragraph answer about MongoDB, but the first paragraph could be considered a node.js biased claim. I perhaps should have pointed out that objectivity is key to answering this kind of question, but I thought it would be implied ;-) – Ones and Zeroes Apr 24 '12 at 08:25
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Are you really sure that you want to use young technology in the kind of setting you are describing? It requires a lot of maturity for a project to start doing long term support of older versions.

Also in the open source world you rarely see the project itself providing any kind of long term support. Instead you have companies like Canonical and RedHat backporting patches to their specific versions of i.e. MySQL. 10Gen is the company behind MongoDB and mongodb-native and they would be the right ones to ask about long term support.

My experience with mongodb-native is that is a very rapidly improving project and you really need to keep up with what is going on. I would not like to support anything where the mongodb-native version is set in stone for the next n years.

Having said that MongoDB, Node.JS, and mongodb-native are certainly production ready if you are prepared to stay abreast with their rapid development.

Martin
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  • Thank you, Martin. Your answer does not address the gridfs part of my question, but it appears to convey the objectivity for which the question called for. – Ones and Zeroes Apr 27 '12 at 19:23
  • I have mixed experiences with using GridFS in my webapp. I have seen some posts on the mongodb mailing list suggest that you should consider not using GridFS if your files are smaller than 16MB (the document size). – Martin Apr 27 '12 at 19:53
  • I have used C# with MongoDB and GridFS, and have no complaints. I however have a problem reading the same files with the native node driver, which appears to dislike Windows files. Which language are you using for your webapp? – Ones and Zeroes Apr 28 '12 at 06:32