Microsoft Open Sources DocumentDB NoSQL Document Database

Microsoft has launched DocumentDB, a document database on top of PostgreSQL back-end. 

NoSQL database (not only SQL) is gaining popularity in last 10 years as it is easy to use. It has flexible schema and it is most suited for semi structured and unstructured data sets. There are different type of NoSQL databases which includes document databases, key-value databases, wide-column stores, and graph databases. 

MongoDB is one of the popular NoSQL document database which uses BSON data and AWS DocumentDB has similar offering which uses MongoDB compatible API and provides database service. BSON is binary encoded JSON documents.

Many database service providers including MongoDB changed their license and moved to source available license. Open source users mostly need basic features and got affected by the license change. They need more reliable database with permissible license. 

Microsoft has launched DocumentDB which is an extension to PostgreSQL. The project has two extension, 

pg_documentdb_core: PostgreSQL extension optimizing for BSON (Binary JavaScript Object Notation) datatype.

pg_documentdb_api: PostgreSQL extension provides API for  CRUD operations, query functionality, and index management.

Microsoft DocumentDB provides document database on top of PostgreSQL and it is released under MIT License. This is really great. Now comes the question, how the user will use the database ? FerretDB comes for the rescue.

FerretDB an open source alternative to MongoDB acts as a front-end to DocumentDB. Developers can use any MongoDB driver which will interact with FerretDB. FerretDB then uses PostgreSQL protocol and communicates with DocumentDB. 

Source: FerretDB

Microsoft DocumentDB, FerretDB and PostgreSQL license are permissible and it is free to use in personnel and commercial purpose. This is a great move from Microsoft as it wisely used PostgreSQL and build a NoSQL interface on top it.