Programming · Intermediate

MongoDB & NoSQL

Databases without tables — what you gain, what you give up, and when the trade is worth it.

Lessons
15 lessons
Total runtime
13 hours of video
Modules
5 modules
Optional lessons
12 optional
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About this course

MongoDB stores documents rather than rows. There is no fixed schema, related data can be nested inside a single record instead of joined across tables, and adding a field is not a migration. For data that genuinely varies in shape, and for teams moving fast enough that schema changes are a weekly event, that is a real advantage.

It is also frequently the wrong choice, and this course says so. A great deal of data is relational, and modelling relational data in documents means either duplicating it — and then keeping the copies in sync by hand — or performing joins in application code that a relational database would have done properly. "Schemaless" does not mean there is no schema; it means the schema lives in your application code, undocumented.

So take this alongside the SQL course rather than instead of it. The genuinely useful skill is being able to look at a problem and say which model fits, and that requires knowing both. Fireship's database paradigms video appears in both courses for exactly this reason.

Under an hour required, and around thirteen in total. Most of the additions are about modelling — the part that decides whether a document database helps you or hurts you two years in. Install MongoDB or use a free hosted cluster, and query it directly before touching any driver.

What you'll be able to do

  • Explain how a document store differs from a relational database, structurally
  • Insert, query, update and delete documents, including nested fields
  • Model data by deciding deliberately between embedding and referencing
  • Use indexes, and recognise the query that is scanning the whole collection
  • Choose between SQL and NoSQL on the merits of the data rather than by habit

Curriculum

15 lessons · 13 hours

The Model

2 lessons · 12m

  1. 01CompletedMongoDB in 100 SecondsFireshipVideoDocuments and collections in two minutes, with a fair account of the trade-off rather than a sales pitch.3m
  2. 02Completed7 Database ParadigmsFireshipVideoWhere document databases sit among the alternatives. This appears in the SQL course too, and it is the single most useful nine minutes for deciding what to use rather than defaulting.9m

Using It

4 lessons · 6h 19m

  1. 03CompletedMongoDB Crash CourseWeb Dev SimplifiedVideoQuerying properly — filters, operators and updates — in the shell rather than through a driver. Learning the query language first means every driver afterwards is obvious.30m
  2. 04CompletedLearn the MERN Stack - Full TutorialOptionalfreeCodeCamp.orgVideoOptional. Mongo in its natural habitat, wired to Express, React and Node as a full application. Take it after the Node and React courses here, not before.3h 40m
  3. 05CompletedLearn MongoDB in 1 HourOptionalBro CodeVideoThe query language itself, typed into the shell rather than through a driver. Do this before touching Mongoose — the abstraction makes much more sense once you know what it is hiding.1h
  4. 06CompletedMongoDB Tutorial For Beginners — Full CourseOptionalAmigoscodeVideoA second pass with more attention to indexes and to Atlas, the hosted version most people actually deploy against.1h 9m

Modelling Documents

3 lessons · 2h 10m

  1. 07CompletedMongoose Crash CourseOptionalWeb Dev SimplifiedVideoMongoDB has no schema; Mongoose adds one in your application instead. This explains what that buys you — validation, defaults, and a place to put the shape of your data.34m
  2. 08CompletedGetting Started with MongoDB & Mongoose ODMOptionalMongoDBVideoThe official version, which is worth having alongside the community one because it is explicit about when embedding beats referencing.21m
  3. 09CompletedMongoDB Full Tutorial with Node.js, Express & MongooseOptionalfreeCodeCamp.orgVideoThe whole stack together rather than the database in isolation, which is how you will actually meet it.1h 15m

Queries and Aggregation

3 lessons · 1h 22m

  1. 10CompletedAggregationOptionalGiraffe AcademyVideoThe aggregation pipeline is MongoDB's answer to GROUP BY and JOIN. Thirteen minutes on the idea before the longer treatments below.13m
  2. 11CompletedMongoDB Aggregation Pipeline — Full TutorialOptionalTanuj MalodeVideoEach stage — match, group, unwind, lookup, project — worked through on real data. This is where you find out that MongoDB can do joins after all, awkwardly.42m
  3. 12CompletedMongoDB Aggregation Framework MasterclassOptionalMongoDB for DevelopersVideoThe official treatment, stronger on performance — which stages can use an index and which quietly cannot.27m

Building With It

3 lessons · 3h 25m

  1. 13CompletedBuild a REST API With Node.js, Express & MongoDBOptionalWeb Dev SimplifiedVideoHalf an hour from an empty folder to a working API over a document database. The shortest path here to something you have built yourself.29m
  2. 14CompletedCRUD API Tutorial — Node, Express, MongoDBOptionalfreeCodeCamp.orgVideoThe longer version of the same project, with error handling and deployment included.1h 33m
  3. 15CompletedMongoDB Zero to Hero in 83 MinutesOptionalAbhishek.VeeramallaVideoThe whole database in under an hour and a half, ending in projects rather than exercises. Covers the operational side — indexes, replication and Atlas — that the shorter lessons here skip.1h 23m

Credits

Every lesson in this course was made by one of these channels. Tubeversity sequenced them; it did not make them. If a course is useful to you, the people below are the ones who earned it.