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Features of MongoDB

MongoDB is a source-available cross-platform document-oriented database program. It is classified as a NoSQL database program, which means it does not use the traditional table-based relational database structure. Instead, it uses JSON-like documents with optional schemas for data storage.

MongoDB is developed by MongoDB Inc. and licensed under the Server Side Public License (SSPL).

Features of MongoDB​

MongoDB is packed with several features that make it a powerful and flexible option for database management. Let's explore some of these features:

1. Document-Oriented​

MongoDB is a document-oriented database. It stores data in BSON format (Binary representation of JSON-like documents) which allows for a rich data model. The data stored is schema-less, which means you can store any kind of data you want without having to define a structure first.

2. High Performance​

MongoDB provides high performance data persistence. It supports rich queries through its powerful query language, indexing, and real time aggregation. Furthermore, it uses internal memory for storing the working set, enabling faster access to data.

3. High Availability​

MongoDB provides high availability with its replica sets. A replica set in MongoDB is a group of mongod processes that maintain the same data set. Replica sets provide redundancy and high availability, and are the basis for all production deployments.

4. Horizontal Scalability​

MongoDB is horizontally scalable, which means you can add more machines to your pool of resources to increase capacity as you need it. It uses sharding to distribute data across many servers. This enables MongoDB to handle huge volumes of data which might be too much for a single server to handle.

5. Rich Query Language​

MongoDB supports a rich query language to read and manipulate data. It supports a wide range of querying options like field, range queries, regular expression searches etc. Data manipulation is done through updates.

6. Support for Indexing​

Indexes support the efficient execution of queries in MongoDB. Without indexes, MongoDB must perform a collection scan i.e., scan every document in a collection, to select those documents that match the query statement.

7. Aggregation Framework​

MongoDB provides a powerful aggregation framework that allows you to process data and return computed results. The aggregation framework provides a pipeline for data aggregation modeled on the concept of data processing pipelines.

8. GridFS​

GridFS is a specification for storing and retrieving files that exceed the BSON-document size limit of 16MB. Instead of storing a file in a single document, GridFS divides a file into parts, or chunks, and stores each of those chunks as a separate document.

These are just a few of the many features that MongoDB offers. Its flexibility, scalability, and robustness make it a popular choice for many companies and developers.

In the next section, we will learn more about how to work with MongoDB, including installing it and performing basic operations.