A database is an organized collection of structured information or data stored electronically in a computer system. Databases are essential for efficiently managing, storing, and retrieving large amounts of information, and allow users and applications to access data quickly and securely. They are widely used in a variety of fields, including business, education, healthcare, and government, to manage everything from customer information to financial records.
Databases are typically managed by database management systems (DBMS), software tools that allow users to interact with the database, perform queries, update records, and ensure the integrity and security of the data. Popular DBMS include MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server.
MySQL
SQL is a widely used and very popular relational database management system (RDBMS), free and open source, ideal for small and large applications. It is very fast, reliable, scalable and easy to use across platforms, conforms to the ANSI SQL standard, was first released in 1995 and developed, distributed and supported by Oracle Corporation. It was then named after the daughter of co-founder Monty Widenius: My
A huge website like Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Booking.com, Uber, GitHub, YouTube and content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla! Contao and a very large number of web developers around the world using MySQL.
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL is a free and open source database system that supports both relational (SQL) and non-relational (JSON) queries, a back-end database for dynamic websites and web applications, and the most important programming languages such as (Python, Java, C/C++, C#, Node.js, Go, Ruby, Perl, Tcl). In addition, PostgreSQL basically supports all the features that other database management systems support. PostgreSQL was invented at the Berkeley Computer Science Department of the University of California.
It began in 1986 as a project with the goal of creating a database system with the minimal features needed to support multiple data types.
PostgreSQL originally ran on UNIX platforms, but it can now run on a variety of platforms, including Windows and MacOS.
MongoDB
MongoDB is a document database. It stores data in a type of JSON format called BSON. A record in MongoDB is a document, a data structure consisting of key-value pairs and similar to the structure of JSON* objects. It can be installed locally or hosted in the cloud.
SQL vs Document Databases
SQL databases are considered relational databases. They store related data in separate tables. When data is needed, it is queried from several tables in order to merge the data again.
MongoDB is a document database, often referred to as a non-relational database. This doesn't mean that relational data can't be stored in document databases. It just means that relational data is stored differently. A better way to refer to this is a non-tabular database.
MongoDB stores data in flexible documents. Instead of having multiple tables, you can simply keep all related data together. This allows you to read your data very quickly.
You can still have multiple groups of data. In MongoDB, these are called collections instead of tables.
Local vs. Cloud Database
MongoDB can be installed locally, allowing you to host your own MongoDB server on your hardware. This will require you to manage your server, upgrades, and other maintenance. However, it is possible to use MongoDB Atlas, a cloud database platform, which is much easier than hosting your own local database.
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
AWS is a Cloud computingplatform. The first product (S3) was released in 2006. AWS has grown significantly in both size and product range since then. It remains the largest cloud provider in the world today. Skill is popular in the job market; you can do most things in the AWS Cloud and it enjoys great community support.
* JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a language-independent, lightweight format for storing and transporting data, commonly used when sending data from a server to a website.
The JSON syntax is derived from the JavaScript object notation syntax, but the JSON format is text-only. Code to read and generate JSON data can be written in any programming language.
