This is a great article by John Nunemaker about the benefits of using MongoDB in Ruby on Rails. I've wanted to mess around with document-oriented databases for a while (we were considering it with Capocus! 2.5 back in early 2009 even, but it felt too new). And since I'm starting from scratch with Capocus! 3 in Rails 3.1, I figure there's no time like now. I've been going back and forth on CouchDB vs. MongoDB. Since I'm hoping to do a good bit of iOS app tinkering for apps that work in conjunction with some Capocus implementations, CouchDB has some appealing features (REST, data sync across devices, small size for running on smartphones). But this article may have tipped me toward starting with MongoDB. It seems to have a more vibrant user base in the Rails community, and John's examples here are pretty exciting. And since Capocus! will likely be using a lot of internal stats logging, the need for better write performance might win out over MVCC). I may spend a day or two with each and see how it shakes out.
And yeah, this article is sorta old... so I have to wonder how if his experience since has changed anything. [Update: Found this lovely blog: http://mongotips.com/ which is recent. Also, have been turned onto Riak and the Ripple gem... so this has become more a choice between Riak and Mongo at this point.]
