Microsoft Takes on MongoDB with PostgreSQL-Based Document Database

Microsoft has launched an open-source document database platform built on PostgreSQL, partnering with FerretDB as a front-end interface. The solution includes two PostgreSQL extensions: pg_documentdb_core for BSON optimization and pg_documentdb_api for data operations.

FerretDB CEO Peter Farkas said the integration with Microsoft's DocumentDB extension has improved performance twentyfold for certain workloads in FerretDB 2.0. The platform carries no commercial licensing fees or usage restrictions under its MIT license, according to Microsoft.

partially responsible for self-nullifying behavior

[Pseudonymous Powers]

Wat. A document database on top of a SQL database? Who asked for this?

Re:partially responsible for self-nullifying behav

[kriston]

You'd be surprised. [wikipedia.org]

Re:partially responsible for self-nullifying behav

[chipperdog]

Postgres can be a relational database, a document store (JSON) database, a key-value pair database, a geospatial database, a graph database, a full text search engine....
and Postgres JSONB performance almost always beats CouchDB, MongoDB and other dedicated document store DBs.

Re:

[Sique]

Ever heard of Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and its document management system MediaWiki [mediawiki.org]?

Re: Who asked for this?

[Tablizer]

Well, who asked for a "document database" in the first place? What do they do that RDBMS can't? Perhaps MS asked the same question, and felt adding the allegedly missing features to PostgreSQL was a smarter route.

I'd like to see more document-DB use-cases for typical non-FANG-sized orgs.

a good turn

[roman_mir]

So I am surprised that MS is doing something like this, of-course Embrace Extend Extinguish is still in the back of my mind, however I don't see how it can happen in this case. Maybe MS is just really set to take market share away from MongoDB and so the enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of a situation...

Re:

[unrtst]

I don't want to touch whether or not this is an embrace/extend/extinguish tactic, there is a path for it. From TFA:

.. Microsoft product marketing manager ... said: "... there are no requirements for users to commit their customizations, contributions, and enhancements back to the project. The MIT license guarantees complete freedom to fork the repository, use, and distribute with no obligations."

They have created an open source solution that anyone, including themselves, can embrace, extend, and extinguish. For example, they could release some new features under a closed license as an add-on, then transition some features from the open one into the closed one (nothing in the license prevents that), and then EOL the open one or allow it to languish while all development continues on th

Re:

[John Allsup]

Take what benefits, fork if necessary, let go of the rest. We'll have a better FOSS Postgres with Microsoft's contributions. Corporate betrayals of open source are commonplace. The thing is, the way open source contributes to Azure, it is in MS's interest to cultivate their relationship with FOSS rather than competing with it. Often it is custodians of a FOSS project with no easy way to monetise it that try to fiddle licenses, make proprietary versions, and so on. Microsoft just wants to pull people into Az

Re:

[bn-7bc]

The enemy of your enemy is not your friend, they are just a third party with some overlapping interests (see the Mujahideen [wikipedia.org] the were helpful to US interests during The soviet nivation of Afghanistan, but turned out not to be that beneficial once the Soviets where out and the USSR collapsed

But But

[awwshit]

Is it Web Scale?

Re:

[cstacy]

Is it Web Scale?

You turn it on and it scales right up!

Re:

[SuiteSisterMary]

Does it support sharding?

Re:But it's web-scale!

[Tablizer]

So is complexity and price.

Re:

[awwshit]

Woosh

Only makes sense with Node.js in the mix

[laughingskeptic]

This is as much a MongoDB challenger as a skateboard is to a sports car. Their API is embedded using SQL "SELECT" as "call". Each of the limited commands they have implemented stands on its own unless you want to parse and build JSON in SQL (yuck). The only sane way to use this is to have a JavaScript engine making these calls. I am not sure that the people who wrote this ever used MongoDB. Regardless, I do not think their intention was to challenge MongoDB, more to create a BSON store with a limited search syntax compatible with MongoDB -- which is a far cry from creating a MongoDB replacement.

I have seen both MongoDB and ElasticSearch used as mid-tier Garbage-In/Garbage-Out data stagers for JavaScript destined for dynamic web pages. This addition to PostgreSQL seems like another reasonable option for this use case with a lot less configuration required.

Microsoft's Cosmos DB is a MongoDB challenger.

Re:Only makes sense with Node.js in the mix

[robot5x]

unless you want to parse and build JSON in SQL (yuck).

Postgres already has very easy JSON parsing features out of the box with jsonb_to_record or JSON_TABLE [postgresql.org] since postgres 17.

Sounds like fake news

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

A Microsoft product that doesn't plug Copilot or some form of AI in it? That sounds fake.

Re:

[Tablizer]

Maybe they just snuck in it and didn't tell anyone this time since Copilot is growing a bad rap. Their Snoop-A-Matic features are probably also in there, ready to be switched on per whim.

Microsoft's Interest in Open Source

[John Allsup]

"While observers might be stunned by Microsoft's growing acceptance of the open source world,"

Microsoft are a business, and are in it for the money, naturally. That's how businesses are.
The thing is, Azure is a massive cash cow for them, and what the open source world offers is of massive benefit.
So Microsoft's goals, at present, are aligned with what is good for the open source community.
If the community can keep those goals aligned: that is, what they do in developing open source benefits Microsoft's goal

Retitle

[Virtucon]

Microsoft builds Rube Goldberg [blogspot.com] device that nobody asked for.