In recent years, more and more alternatives to traditional relational databases (often called NoSQL) have been appearing. One subtype of this new paradigm are document-oriented databases, which store pieces of content as a whole (compared to relational model where we commonly store the component parts for a single content entity across multiple tables). This principle can be very successfully applied to Drupal entities, which are typically composed of an assembly of various fields. One of the most popular and effective document databases available today is MongoDB.

In this presentation, we will explain what MongoDB is and how it differs from traditional SQL databases that are usually used with Drupal sites. We will demonstrate the multiple ways that MongoDB integrates with Drupal and what the pros and cons involved are. We will also present some benchmarks and share some of our first-hand experiences with using MongoDB on examiner.com.

We will also go through some of the changes in Drupal 8 which impact its integration with MongoDB, and what this means for migrating or creating new Drupal 8 without an SQL database.