MongoDB Levels Up with a Dedicated Conference

The company formerly known as 10gen, who recently changed their name to MongoDB to better align themselves with the product they offer, has plans to take the open source document database to a new level of attention and visibility. Last week, the company announced that the scrappy MongoDB NoSQL database will receive its own dedicated MongoDB World conference.

The conference, slated to run from June 23 – June 25, 2014, is expected to attract more than 2,000 attendees at the Sheraton Times Square Hotel in New York City. While the platform has previously had local gatherings around the globe to discuss the development and implementation of MongoDB, this is their first ever global summit – held just blocks from where MongoDB was conceived and born.

The MongoDB database, which is known primarily for its relative ease of use in the NoSQL space, seems to be gaining momentum. Last month, the company made the case that the MongoDB community is among the fastest-growing in big data.

“Our research into the NoSQL database space indicates that interest in MongoDB is outpacing interest in other NoSQL database technologies by some margin,” said Matt Aslett, research director, data management and analytics, 451 Research.

It’s a claim that from a visceral level, we find hard to believe given how much we hear about Hadoop, and how little we actually hear about MongoDB, but they offer some supporting evidence for their claim, including:

• Google – Google Trends analysis shows that MongoDB has grown more than 2,000% since June 2009, significantly faster than any other Big Data technology.
• Stack Overflow – Data from the popular online Q&A site for programmers indicate that questions tagged with MongoDB since 2009 are growing 3x faster than those of any other Big Data technology.
• LinkedIn Skills – LinkedIn’s Skills page, which measures the number of users who list a particular skill in their profiles, has MongoDB growing faster than any other technology in Big Data, at 73% year over year.
• Meetup.com – This leading community meetup site reveals MongoDB has grown approximately 500% since April 2010 – more than any of its peers – with 2x-3x more meetups since February 2012.
• Brandwatch – According to this web tracking platform which monitors blogs, forums and social media, MongoDB grew 4,277% since July 2010, more than 2x the rate of the next fastest-growing Big Data community.
• Social Media Platforms – MongoDB’s social media presence is a clear indicator of its size and vibrancy in the Big Data community. On Twitter, MongoDB has more than 1.5x the amount of Twitter followers (41,000+) than any other Big Data technology. On Facebook, MongoDB has 2x more “likes” (37,000+) than any other Big Data technology.

We don’t doubt MongoDB’s popularity – whoever calls themselves the king of the NoSQL world, there’s no doubt that MongoDB does have a place at the table. Mongo’s reputation is as a reliable database with far less complexity than some of its counterparts makes it an approachable introductory option for companies looking to enter into the big data world. However, along with its reputation for cutting through the complexity, comes a reputation for scaling/performance challenges once the data system crosses a certain threshold.

Regardless of its mixed reputation, MongoDB has an impressive list of production deployments, including companies like Craigslist, SAP, The New York Times, and more.

With the name change and the new global conference set, it will be interesting to see if MongoDB follows the trends of some of their competitors with another funding round. Recently competitors Couchbase and DataStax announced funding rounds of $25 million and $45 million respectively, and Hadoop distro vendor Hortonworks announcing a $50 million haul this summer. Mongo’s most recent investment was an undisclosed sum contributed by Intel Capital and Red Hat last November, with another undisclosed round from In-Q-Tel, in September before that. MongoDB raised $42 million last May in a funding round led by New Enterprise Associates.

Related items:

DataStax Rakes $45 Million; Schemes Growth 

Couchbase Finds $25M in the Cushions 

AeroSpike Says Secret to NoSQL Speed is Simplicity