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MongoDB vs PostgreSQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

MongoDB
Ranking in Open Source Databases
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
NoSQL Databases (1st), Managed NoSQL Databases (9th)
PostgreSQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of MongoDB is 4.2%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 18.0%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Uzair Faruqi - PeerSpot reviewer
Transforms data flow with adaptable schema and smooth public cloud deployment
One of our business units uses MongoDB, and we developed an ETL pipeline that extracts data from MongoDB and transfers it into our data warehouse MongoDB is a NoSQL database that is similar to a document database. It offers flexibility in schema adaptation, allowing us to change the schema and…
PavithrarajShetty - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers simplicity and is cheaply priced
I haven't gone through the scalability aspect since I was using MySQL Server. I haven't worked to a high level in PostgreSQL, but with MySQL Server, I have managed clustering and partitioning. I think I haven't put much focus on PostgreSQL, so I am not sure how it behaves or how it works.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the geometric information done with GeoJSON."
"MongoDB is simpler to learn and implement than traditional SQL solutions like MySQL."
"The initial setup isn't really that complex."
"Sharding is an excellent feature of MongoDB."
"It is very easy to create a MongoDB cluster. You can deploy three nodes in one hour. You can do small configurations to enable routing. It is easy to implement."
"It's super easy to develop a couple of solutions for clients with MongoDB, like a quick web page with no clear data structure that they need to spin up quickly to validate some sort of MDTP."
"It stores historical data with ease. For example, if you are a healthcare member, then you will have multiple records of visits to the doctors. To store such data in Oracle Database, you have to create many records. You might also have duplication problems because your records are going in again and again, because of which the data warehouse and the maintenance cost will be huge. MongoDB is comparatively lightweight. It is a JSON extract. Once you define a schema and extract it, you can push all the relationships in any way you want. It is easier to define and get different types of transactions into MongoDB. It is also easier to set it up as compared to other solutions. MongoDB is a NoSQL database, which means it is a document DB in which you can store documents that you created in BSON. It is pretty fast in response. It is faster than relational databases because it does not define any primary keys, secondary keys, tertiary keys, and all those kinds of things."
"We've found the product to be scalable."
"Postgres has some functions called JSONB aggregators or other aggregators, which are quite useful."
"The solution provides complete support in terms of the SQL dialect and behaves nicely when it comes to transactions."
"PostgreSQL has complete SQL dialects and is useful for writing sophisticated and complex queries. We have experience with Oracle database. My partner is experienced in DDA and he writes sophisticated SQL queries. The solution helps to get the job done in the best possible way. In today’s age, most developers do not have strong SQL knowledge or language command. They find it difficult to write even a SQL statement. These developers write cool queries which perform badly on the database end. As DBAs, we constantly urge the developers not to write bad queries, help them learn more, and write placebo commands."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The main value is that it is open source, which means it is free. Our organization has the initiative to go to open source to cut down on cost. Oracle costs us $6 million a year right now, which is killing us, and Postgres costs nothing. So, there is a big push to go to Postgres."
"PostgreSQL is stable. It's available, stable, and reliable."
"Scalable, stable, and easy to manage database system, with a straightforward installation."
"Initial setup is simple."
 

Cons

"MongoDB should support TypeScript."
"The stability could be better."
"MongoDB could improve by not having so many updates and different versions."
"Lacks sufficient scalability and elasticity."
"I suppose it could be a little more secure."
"The free tools, like MongoDB Compass, could be enhanced."
"We'd like technical support to respond faster to queries."
"MongoDB is a very useful and convenient choice, but sometimes for more complex projects, there are certain niche requirements that appear, so using a different tool could be beneficial. It raises the complexity of the architecture, but it could be beneficial to the world, the features, the ease of the features which are being implemented."
"The database and applications can become very slow."
"The search option is not very good."
"The solution could improve the integration."
"The pricing could be better."
"It still needs to be more mature and have some backup feature. We are normally dealing with Oracle's data, and we have very strong online tools to back up the data and do other things. PostgreSQL still needs to do more in this area as well as in the high availability area. There are many external tools that you can use for PostgreSQL's high availability, but there is no embedded tool within PostgreSQL for high availability. It could have a feature similar to Oracle for working on a distributed system. It can have some scripts to improve the monitoring and some tools to do performance analysis. We have a workaround for most of such requirements except for the support for a distributed system, which is very difficult to have. This area should be included in the core of the database itself."
"PostgreSQL could improve by providing a geographical solution for tracking trucks and people in the field. They might already have features similar to this and I have not found them. I haven't done research about this topic."
"PostgreSQL could improve by adding data warehousing tools."
"We have to set up event API, which takes a lot of events from the user."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm using the free version of MongoDB."
"The pricing is favorable if you opt to install MongoDB on an Amazon EC2 instance as you won't have to pay for the extra Atlas services and can instead manage the scaling yourself. This allows for a cost-effective solution and using MongoDB on a small scale, I have been able to utilize it for free."
"I don't know, but I have heard from people who procure it that it is much cheaper than Oracle."
"MongoDB's pricing is reasonable."
"It's open-source."
"This is an open-source solution."
"MongoDB is not expensive."
"MongoDB is an open-source solution."
"The tool is cheaply priced compared to other RDBMS providers in the market."
"The licensing model is good."
"It is an open-source platform."
"The need for our customers to pay for licences is contingent on their projects and budgets."
"It could be much cheaper. If you would like to build an application on Amazon today, PostgreSQL is the standard database with Redshift. If you want other databases, you can add them, but PostgreSQL is the basis of everything. It's a question of money, that's it."
"This solution can offer a cheaper choice for customers since it is open-source."
"PostgreSQL is open-source, so if capable admins are available then the setup cost can be $0."
"We use the open-source version of PostgreSQL and not the enterprise edition."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about MongoDB?
MongoDB's approach to handling data in documents rather than traditional tables has been particularly beneficial.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MongoDB?
We use the free version of MongoDB, so there are no licensing costs.
What needs improvement with MongoDB?
There is room for improvement in integrating MongoDB with agentive AI solutions. While solutions for other databases like SQL or PostgreSQL ( /products/postgresql-reviews ) already exist, MongoDB r...
How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...
What do you like most about PostgreSQL?
It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?
The tool is free of cost. For now, it's not about making money. But once we perfect it, we can offer it to customers willing to pay for support and other services. Most of my deployments are free.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about MongoDB vs. PostgreSQL and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.