7 ms·

Curious to hear who is using it still. I experimented with it 2010/2011 IIRC but never build a real project with it.

by fs111 2y ago

diggan 2y ago
Was some time ago (2016), but we built and released Typeform LITE (form creator via text-entry-like interface for smartphones) with CouchDB + PouchDB which was a pleasure as far as I can remember. Was really neat to get local-first functionality almost out of the box with web tech on smartphones.
lemme_tell_ya 2y ago
We used 1.6 for a large project in 2014 or so, the 2.x release removed key features for us and we were never able to upgrade. The direction they went after that just never really worked for us so we only have that legacy project still running.
- janl 2y ago
  CouchDB dev here. 2.x only added new features, not sure what you’re referring to that was removed. The only on incompatibility was the changes feed ids moving from numbers to strings, which is hardly a huge migration :)
salviati 2y ago
We tried to use it alongside pouchdb to provide offline first experience. We ran into a lot of issues, mainly with pouchdb bugs. Then after reading this list [1] of issues in the couchdb architecture we decided to ditch it and stop trying to make pouchdb work. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115649
- ZuLuuuuuu 2y ago
  Out of curiosity, if you would like to start a new, offline-first project that needs syncing, which database would be the best candidate today?
  - janl 2y ago
    I would still recommend you give CouchDB and PouchDB a fair shot. They are used successfully by many folks.
  - mananaysiempre 2y ago
    One interesting idea I’ve seen is none[1]. That’s definitely more on the exploration side than the shipping one, though. [1] https://tonsky.me/blog/crdt-filesync/ https://tonsky.me/blog/crdt-filesync/
    - rglullis 2y ago
      hum, allow me to toot my own horn here. I've written something to that effect in 2021. https://raphael.lullis.net/thinking-heads-are-not-in-the-clouds/ https://raphael.lullis.net/thinking-heads-are-not-in-the-clo...
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      I can think of two complex pieces of software which intentionally shunned databases thinking they can just do its thing in "flat files" - git and DokuWiki. What ended happening is that both developed their own custom shi*ty database engines because it turns out that things like indexes are just generally pretty useful, but doing them right is pretty damn difficult. I'm pretty sure that if Linus/git chose e.g. SQLite instead of "flat files", we'd have way fewer data corruption problems, and a more capable/extensible git.
      - mananaysiempre 2y ago
        I don’t know if Git’s storage is deserving of this level of scorn—I can’t lay claim to any in-depth knowledge, but if it were indeed a big problem I’d expect it to come up frequently in comparisons with Fossil, which stores things using SQLite. (As a counterpoint, I use git-annex quite a bit, and it almost certainly couldn’t integrate as neatly into Fossil’s storage approach as it does into Git’s.) So I’d appreciate any details here. All that is beside the point, though: the article above is not about using or not using flat files as a storage primitive, it’s about using files of whatever nature as a replication and version reconciliation mechanism, in view of the fact that concurrent editing is inevitably application-specific, so we might as well lean into it instead of leaving it to a database. In that sentence, “a database” is not just any database, it’s one of a very short list of multimaster databases with relatively loose schemas, which includes CouchDB and—among legitimately FOSS projects—I’d struggle to name more. This is not a decision about data storage at all, in other words. It is a decision about protocols. Experience shows that the alternative does not end up being an off-the-shelf database (even CouchDB, which does seem like a major road not taken looking back at Canonical’s efforts a decade ago), the alternative is usually a central synchronization server speaking a custom protocol. (CalDAV, CardDAV, Bitwarden, etc.) And if you want to do your CRDT or OT or whatnot over per-client SQLite databases instead of per-client text files, all the more power to you. Finally, I tried to phrase my comment above in a way that makes it clear that it’s a suggestion of a direction to have fun in, not of a principle to architect your production app around. So the sneering in your comment is... honestly disheartening to read. Like, do people even hack anymore? I know they do, but every time I read something like this I become a little bit less sure of it.
naranha 2y ago
I build an internal project using CouchDB2 as a backend in 2017 and it's still used today. CouchDB definitely surpassed my expectations in what has been possible to do with it. Its biggest advantages are that data sync is effortless and that it uses HTTP as a protocol, so you can communicate directly with it from a web application.
rakoo 2y ago
Used it this school year for a research project that needs solid replication of content and a firehose of updates. There are dozens of such projects but nothing beats the simplicity and versatility of basic HTTP calls with JSON documents and the robustness of a 15-years old project that Just Works.
vincnetas 2y ago
We are still using couchdb for user profile synchronisations. Basically user details and data from mobile synched to the cloud. In our application users do not interact between one another. So basically we use db per user model. This gives us synchronisation between mobile/web clients. Pity that there is no up to date mobile library for couchDB and we depend on an old one.
olakease 2y ago
I have built advertisement bidders and ad servers. I avoid querying the database on every request (and caches) by creating app in-memory materialized views of the database. See https://www.confluent.io/blog/leveraging-power-database-unbundled/ https://www.confluent.io/blog/leveraging-power-database-unbu... for more about this. Another cool feature of the replication protocol is that I can tell if all app servers are on the same version of the data.
EraYaN 2y ago
We are using it internally as just a document store (with some erlang views but that is it). It scales very nicely, but for smaller documents postgres does the job for us so we are (slowly) moving away to simplify the tech stack.
ies7 2y ago
We still use couchdb & pouchdb only for syncing data for our salesmen app. It's an offline first PWA (Salesman need to make an order even if offline). And pouchdb make it easier because we don't have to care about indexeddb, leveldb or whatever of users browser's db. So its a single codebase for serving web, ios and android. Its great for sync but less then good for other uses
PlayingPossum 2y ago
It is still being used by a cool open-source project, Kazoo, which is essentially a multi-tenant PBX.
gneray 2y ago
I was wondering the same thing
johnchristopher 2y ago
I tried to build some hobby stuff with it (mostly worked), planning to use it instead of mongodb @work but I got hit by the limitations of the JS engine version used at the time and it got frustrating too fast for a small hobbyist project. The mongodb/couchdb thing at work was cancelled so I didn't spend more time with it. People behind it are really, really nice though. One of the top (the top I think ?) obsidian sync plugin uses it.
retrodaredevil 2y ago
I'm using it as a database for my application, SolarThing: http://github.com/wildmountainfarms/solarthing http://github.com/wildmountainfarms/solarthing I was naive when I chose it (I was just starting to program then), but it has served me well. It's replication feature is simple to setup and is robust. It uses a REST API for any calls to the database, and it is a well designed API. I don't use all its features, but I really like it for the ones I use.

Curious to hear who is using it still. I experimented with it 2010/2011 IIRC but never build a real project with it.

by fs111 2y ago

Curious to hear who is using it still. I experimented with it 2010/2011 IIRC but never build a real project with it.

Was some time ago (2016), but we built and released Typeform LITE (form creator via text-entry-like interface for smartphones) with CouchDB + PouchDB which was a pleasure as far as I can remember. Was really neat to get local-first functionality almost out of the box with web tech on smartphones.

lemme_tell_ya 2y ago

We used 1.6 for a large project in 2014 or so, the 2.x release removed key features for us and we were never able to upgrade. The direction they went after that just never really worked for us so we only have that legacy project still running.

janl 2y ago
CouchDB dev here. 2.x only added new features, not sure what you’re referring to that was removed. The only on incompatibility was the changes feed ids moving from numbers to strings, which is hardly a huge migration :)

salviati 2y ago

We tried to use it alongside pouchdb to provide offline first experience. We ran into a lot of issues, mainly with pouchdb bugs. Then after reading this list [1] of issues in the couchdb architecture we decided to ditch it and stop trying to make pouchdb work. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115649

ZuLuuuuuu 2y ago
Out of curiosity, if you would like to start a new, offline-first project that needs syncing, which database would be the best candidate today?
- janl 2y ago
  I would still recommend you give CouchDB and PouchDB a fair shot. They are used successfully by many folks.
- mananaysiempre 2y ago
  One interesting idea I’ve seen is none[1]. That’s definitely more on the exploration side than the shipping one, though. [1] https://tonsky.me/blog/crdt-filesync/ https://tonsky.me/blog/crdt-filesync/
  - rglullis 2y ago
    hum, allow me to toot my own horn here. I've written something to that effect in 2021. https://raphael.lullis.net/thinking-heads-are-not-in-the-clouds/ https://raphael.lullis.net/thinking-heads-are-not-in-the-clo...
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    I can think of two complex pieces of software which intentionally shunned databases thinking they can just do its thing in "flat files" - git and DokuWiki. What ended happening is that both developed their own custom shi*ty database engines because it turns out that things like indexes are just generally pretty useful, but doing them right is pretty damn difficult. I'm pretty sure that if Linus/git chose e.g. SQLite instead of "flat files", we'd have way fewer data corruption problems, and a more capable/extensible git.
    - mananaysiempre 2y ago
      I don’t know if Git’s storage is deserving of this level of scorn—I can’t lay claim to any in-depth knowledge, but if it were indeed a big problem I’d expect it to come up frequently in comparisons with Fossil, which stores things using SQLite. (As a counterpoint, I use git-annex quite a bit, and it almost certainly couldn’t integrate as neatly into Fossil’s storage approach as it does into Git’s.) So I’d appreciate any details here. All that is beside the point, though: the article above is not about using or not using flat files as a storage primitive, it’s about using files of whatever nature as a replication and version reconciliation mechanism, in view of the fact that concurrent editing is inevitably application-specific, so we might as well lean into it instead of leaving it to a database. In that sentence, “a database” is not just any database, it’s one of a very short list of multimaster databases with relatively loose schemas, which includes CouchDB and—among legitimately FOSS projects—I’d struggle to name more. This is not a decision about data storage at all, in other words. It is a decision about protocols. Experience shows that the alternative does not end up being an off-the-shelf database (even CouchDB, which does seem like a major road not taken looking back at Canonical’s efforts a decade ago), the alternative is usually a central synchronization server speaking a custom protocol. (CalDAV, CardDAV, Bitwarden, etc.) And if you want to do your CRDT or OT or whatnot over per-client SQLite databases instead of per-client text files, all the more power to you. Finally, I tried to phrase my comment above in a way that makes it clear that it’s a suggestion of a direction to have fun in, not of a principle to architect your production app around. So the sneering in your comment is... honestly disheartening to read. Like, do people even hack anymore? I know they do, but every time I read something like this I become a little bit less sure of it.

naranha 2y ago

I build an internal project using CouchDB2 as a backend in 2017 and it's still used today. CouchDB definitely surpassed my expectations in what has been possible to do with it. Its biggest advantages are that data sync is effortless and that it uses HTTP as a protocol, so you can communicate directly with it from a web application.

rakoo 2y ago

Used it this school year for a research project that needs solid replication of content and a firehose of updates. There are dozens of such projects but nothing beats the simplicity and versatility of basic HTTP calls with JSON documents and the robustness of a 15-years old project that Just Works.

vincnetas 2y ago

We are still using couchdb for user profile synchronisations. Basically user details and data from mobile synched to the cloud. In our application users do not interact between one another. So basically we use db per user model. This gives us synchronisation between mobile/web clients. Pity that there is no up to date mobile library for couchDB and we depend on an old one.

olakease 2y ago

I have built advertisement bidders and ad servers. I avoid querying the database on every request (and caches) by creating app in-memory materialized views of the database. See https://www.confluent.io/blog/leveraging-power-database-unbundled/ https://www.confluent.io/blog/leveraging-power-database-unbu... for more about this. Another cool feature of the replication protocol is that I can tell if all app servers are on the same version of the data.

EraYaN 2y ago

We are using it internally as just a document store (with some erlang views but that is it). It scales very nicely, but for smaller documents postgres does the job for us so we are (slowly) moving away to simplify the tech stack.

ies7 2y ago

We still use couchdb & pouchdb only for syncing data for our salesmen app. It's an offline first PWA (Salesman need to make an order even if offline). And pouchdb make it easier because we don't have to care about indexeddb, leveldb or whatever of users browser's db. So its a single codebase for serving web, ios and android. Its great for sync but less then good for other uses

PlayingPossum 2y ago

It is still being used by a cool open-source project, Kazoo, which is essentially a multi-tenant PBX.

gneray 2y ago

I was wondering the same thing

johnchristopher 2y ago

I tried to build some hobby stuff with it (mostly worked), planning to use it instead of mongodb @work but I got hit by the limitations of the JS engine version used at the time and it got frustrating too fast for a small hobbyist project. The mongodb/couchdb thing at work was cancelled so I didn't spend more time with it. People behind it are really, really nice though. One of the top (the top I think ?) obsidian sync plugin uses it.

retrodaredevil 2y ago

I'm using it as a database for my application, SolarThing: http://github.com/wildmountainfarms/solarthing http://github.com/wildmountainfarms/solarthing I was naive when I chose it (I was just starting to program then), but it has served me well. It's replication feature is simple to setup and is robust. It uses a REST API for any calls to the database, and it is a well designed API. I don't use all its features, but I really like it for the ones I use.