What is Apache CouchDB?
Apache CouchDB is a document-oriented NoSQL database that uses JSON for documents, JavaScript for MapReduce indexes, and HTTP for its API. It's designed for web applications and emphasizes eventual consistency and master-master replication.
Key Features
- • Document-oriented storage with JSON
- • RESTful HTTP/JSON API
- • Multi-master replication
- • MVCC (Multi-Version Concurrency Control)
- • Built-in web interface (Fauxton)
- • MapReduce views for querying
CouchDB Performance Calculator
3 replicas
2 KB
1,000 reads/sec
500 writes/sec
Performance Metrics
Estimated Storage:5063 GB
Throughput:3 MB/s
Availability:100.08%
Replication Latency:45 ms
Real-World Examples
NPM Registry
NPM uses CouchDB to store package metadata and handle millions of package downloads daily.
- • 2+ million packages stored as JSON documents
- • Multi-master replication across global CDN
- • RESTful API for package management
BBC
BBC uses CouchDB for content management and real-time collaboration on news articles.
- • Offline-first journalism workflow
- • Multi-master replication for field reporters
- • Conflict-free collaborative editing
Financial Services
Banks use CouchDB for mobile banking apps requiring offline synchronization.
- • 500K+ customer records replicated to mobile devices
- • Eventual consistency for account balances
- • Audit trail with document versioning
Basic Operations
Creating and Querying Documents
// Connect to CouchDB
const nano = require('nano')('http://localhost:5984');
const db = nano.use('users');
// Create a document
const user = {
_id: 'user123',
name: 'John Doe',
email: 'john@example.com',
created: new Date().toISOString()
};
await db.insert(user);
// Read a document
const doc = await db.get('user123');
console.log(doc.name); // 'John Doe'
// Update a document
doc.last_login = new Date().toISOString();
await db.insert(doc);
// Create a MapReduce view
const designDoc = {
_id: '_design/users',
views: {
by_email: {
map: function(doc) {
if (doc.email) {
emit(doc.email, doc);
}
}
}
}
};
await db.insert(designDoc);
// Query the view
const result = await db.view('users', 'by_email', {
key: 'john@example.com'
});
Best Practices
✅ Do
- •Use meaningful document IDs for better performance
- •Design views carefully - they're your primary query mechanism
- •Embrace eventual consistency in your application design
- •Use bulk operations for better performance
- •Implement proper conflict resolution strategies
❌ Don't
- •Use CouchDB for complex relational queries
- •Create views that emit large documents
- •Ignore document size limits (4GB max)
- •Assume immediate consistency across replicas
- •Use sequential document IDs in high-write scenarios
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