When comparing OrientDB vs CouchDB, the Slant community recommends CouchDB for most people. In the question“What are the best databases to use for Node.js applications?” CouchDB is ranked 3rd while OrientDB is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose CouchDB is:
CouchDB works very well even when the network is physically partitioned
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Multi-model database (document, object, graph)
This database is primarily, or historically, thought of as a graph database. However, it is actually a multi-model database that supports a variety of noSQL models (key-value, document, etc.).
Pro Open Source commercial friendly license (Apache 2)
The Apache 2 license is one of the most liberal licenses. You can use OrientDB for any purpose for free.
Pro Free clustering support
Unlike other NoSql databases, OrientDB offers clustering support for free. Furthermore, it's not a basic Master/Slave, but it supports Master-Master replication + Sharding.
Pro Distributed Graph Database with relational type Documents
Pro Supports sql as well as other query languages
It can be queried in a number of ways, but the ability to query with SQL makes it a bit more familiar to use.
Pro Multi-master replication
OrientDB is incredibly scalable thanks to its multi-master replication. All nodes in a cluster can both read and write.
Pro Full text search
Full text search support is available when using Lucene based indexing algorithm.
Pro Performance
OrientDB is very fast, especially when it comes to relationships between records (or "links").
Pro Enterprise version available
The Community Edition is free and covers many features, but an Enterprise Edition is available (prices are transparent, published online) with 24x7 support.
Pro Works well between physical network partitions
CouchDB works very well even when the network is physically partitioned
Pro Available
CouchDB is considered an available DMS according to the ACP theory of database management. As such it allows every client to always read and write
Pro Useful for applications where versioning is important
CouchDB is mostly used in applications where a large amount of data needs to be accumulated and where data only changes rarely.
Pro Changes API
You can use the RESTful API to listen for changes in your database, which is something most databases can't do. It makes it really easy for clients to keep their view of data up-to-date.
Pro RESTful API
Since everything is stored as a JSON document and served over HTTP, it's perfectly suited for communicating with client-side javascript, with or without middleware.
Cons
Con Not well known
It's a very unfortunate thing, but it's true. Not many people know of this gem so that makes it difficult to find community support at times. It also makes it hard to get people on board with it who shop products by brand name or flashy marketing. It also means there are fewer code snippets, libraries, and frameworks that consider it. While it's interoperability is good with SQL support and Tinkerpop, it still doesn't change the fact that many things don't give it much thought and that can lead to more work as a developer sometimes.
Con Learning curve
A lot of effort went into making OrientDB easy and familiar to use (such as SQL queries for example). However, it's important to understand the database engine a bit and how it works in general (links for example). This involves a bit of a learning curve if you're not familiar with graph databases. Not an enormous curve or anything, but it's still a consideration.
Con Bulk inserts may cause an out of memory crash
When doing inserts in OrientDB you have to be careful to do them one at a time. Bulk inserts may cause out of memory error
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Con Can only achieve consistency through replication and verification
Since CouchDB is considered an AP (Available, Partition-Tolerant database management system), it is not really consistent (not all clients can have the same view of the data consistently) and the only way to achieve some "eventual consistency" is through replication and verification of data.
Con Uncertain future
After a very promising start, development began to drag after major supporters like Canonical, Selenium and CouchOne either shut down or moved to other tools. Development has begun to pick up again.
