AI Indexes
IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Data platform › September 2026 Edition

NoSQL databases

Asked as “NoSQL database”, and as “document or key-value database service”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 54 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
74%
Clear leader
74MongoDB11Amazon DynamoDB04Couchbase11others

74% of first choices, clear leader.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01MongoDB74%13%82endorsed leader
02Amazon DynamoDB11%21%67accepted challenger
03Couchbase4%9%43accepted challenger
04Redis2%15%55accepted challenger
05ScyllaDB2%0%21accepted challenger
06PostgreSQL2%0%11accepted challenger
07Google Cloud Firestore Lab in the set2%0%11accepted challenger
Show the six products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
13Riak KV0%50%10criticized challenger
11Apache CouchDB0%46%13criticized challenger
12Apache HBase0%43%14criticized challenger
10Azure Cosmos DB0%20%20accepted challenger
08Apache Cassandra0%17%52accepted challenger
09Neo4j0%0%28accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.

Google Cloud Firestore is made by Google, whose model Gemini 3.5 Flash is in the set. On the four share prompts that model made it the first choice zero times of 4; the other eleven models one time of 44. Lab treatment is defined on the method page; the row is marked, not excluded.

All twenty-one head-to-head pages: the top seven products, each against each

One product takes 74% of first choices here, so the chart would put twelve markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. Three products carry a negative rate above 25% in this category.

What they warned about

Seven of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small and Llama 4 Maverick changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Amazon DynamoDB
21%
14 of 67 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“**Avoid DynamoDB** as a primary application database unless your use case is a clean fit for key-value patterns” Kimi K2, direct prompt
MongoDB
13%
11 of 82 labels negative · 10 of 12 models
“MongoDB's own docs warn that sharded clusters require careful planning and that poor shard-key choice can hurt scalability and performance.” GPT-5.4 mini, negative prompt
Apache Cassandra
17%
9 of 52 labels negative · 8 of 12 models
“No built-in auth/encryption in older releases; relies on manual config. Vulnerable to unauthorized access if not tuned.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
Apache HBase
43%
6 of 14 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“HBase (consider migrating to modern alternatives)” Kimi K2, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

67 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 882 links across 259 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · MongoDB33 answers · 64 citations · 11 models
23 answers · 23 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Couchbase19 answers · 43 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Guideflow19 answers · 19 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Aerospike18 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Instaclustr16 answers · 16 citations · 10 models
vendor site · G215 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
15 answers · 17 citations · 6 models
vendor site · SourceForge14 answers · 18 citations · 9 models
vendor site · ScyllaDB13 answers · 16 citations · 6 models
12 answers · 12 citations · 7 models
12 answers · 12 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best nosql database”, “nosql database”, “nosql databases”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
MongoDB mongodb.com74%19274,0009,630342,632$8,6251201
Amazon aws.amazon.com
Amazon DynamoDB 11%
11%155151,000,0001,380,9399,238,321$20,4765
Couchbase couchbase.com4%944,40022162,564$3426
Redis redis.io2%13727,1006,980112,42418
ScyllaDB scylladb.com2%441,9007622,4681203
PostgreSQL postgresql.org2%8274,00014,143465,585
Google Cloud google.dev
Google Cloud Firestore 2%, Google Cloud Bigtable 0%
2%38165,0007,596881,346109
Google Firebase Firestore2%
MongoDB Atlas Free Tier2%
Apache Cassandra apache.org0%1161,3001651,144,0250

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 14 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (aerospike.com, instaclustr.com, mongodb.com, scylladb.com). The first result for “best nosql database” is reddit.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best NoSQL database for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which document or key-value database service would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top NoSQL databases and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best NoSQL database for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a NoSQL database. What should we look at?”Negative“Which NoSQL databases should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5MongoDB
Three alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Google Cloud Firestore, PostgreSQL with JSON
Amazon DynamoDB, MongoDBChanged
Two alternativesPostgreSQL, Redis
Redis
Three alternativesApache Cassandra, MongoDB, Neo4j
MongoDB
Four alternativesApache Cassandra, Apache CouchDB, Firebase, Redis
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniMongoDB
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra
against: Couchbase
MongoDBHeld
One alternativeAmazon DynamoDB
no first choiceMongoDB
Three alternativesApache Cassandra, PostgreSQL, Redis
no first choiceagainst: MongoDB
Gemini 3.5 FlashMongoDB
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Couchbase
Amazon DynamoDB, MongoDBChanged
One alternativeAzure Cosmos DB
against: Redis
MongoDB
Four alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Neo4j, Redis
Amazon DynamoDB, Google Firebase Firestore
Four alternativesMongoDB, Oracle Cloud NoSQL, PostgreSQL, Valkey
against: MongoDB, Redis
no first choice
Three alternativesCouchbase, Google Cloud Bigtable, MongoDB
against: Amazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Apache HBase, Azure Cosmos DB, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, RethinkDB
Perplexity SonarMongoDB
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Azure Cosmos DB
MongoDBHeld
Three alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Azure Cosmos DB, Google Cloud Firestore
MongoDB
Seven alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Azure Cosmos DB, Couchbase, Elasticsearch, Firebase Realtime Database, Redis
MongoDB
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Redis
against: Couchbase Community Edition
no first choiceagainst: Amazon DynamoDB, Apache CouchDB, Apache HBase
Grok 4.20MongoDB
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra
Amazon DynamoDB, MongoDBChanged
Three alternativesAmazon DocumentDB, Couchbase, Redis
no first choiceagainst: Amazon DynamoDB, MemcachedMongoDB
Three alternativesApache Cassandra, Apache CouchDB, Redis
no first choice
Two alternativesDataStax Astra DB, MongoDB
against: Apache Cassandra
against: Amazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Apache CouchDB, Ardb, Azure Cosmos DB, HyperGraphDB, Hypertable, MemcacheDB, MongoDB, MyOODB, NeoDatis/ObjectDB, OrientDB, Perst, Redis, Riak KV, Voldemort
Mistral SmallAmazon DynamoDB, MongoDB
Two alternativesAzure Cosmos DB, Redis
MongoDB, RedisChanged
One alternativeAmazon DynamoDB
no first choiceCouchbase, MongoDB
Two alternativesApache Cassandra, ScyllaDB
MongoDB
Eight alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Amazon Neptune, Apache Cassandra, Couchbase, Firebase, Neo4j, Redis, ScyllaDB
against: Amazon DynamoDB, Couchbase, MongoDB, Oracle NoSQL Database, Redis
DeepSeek V4 FlashMongoDB
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, PostgreSQL
against: Azure Cosmos DB, Couchbase
MongoDBHeld
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Azure Cosmos DB
against: Couchbase
MongoDB
Six alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Azure Cosmos DB, Couchbase, Neo4j, Redis
MongoDB
Four alternativesApache Cassandra, Apache CouchDB, ArangoDB, Redis
MongoDB
Seven alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Azure Cosmos DB, Couchbase, DataStax Astra DB, Redis, ScyllaDB
against: Amazon DocumentDB, Amazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Apache CouchDB, Apache HBase, Hypertable, MongoDB, Redis, Riak KV, Sones, Voldemort
Llama 4 MaverickMongoDBCouchbaseChanged
Three alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, MongoDB, Redis
no first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashMongoDB
Three alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Neo4j, PostgreSQL
MongoDBHeld
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Couchbase
Apache Cassandra, MongoDB, Neo4j, Redis
One alternativeAmazon DynamoDB
Google Cloud Firestore, MongoDB
Three alternativesApache Cassandra, ArangoDB, ScyllaDB
PostgreSQLagainst: Apache Cassandra, Apache HBase, ArangoDB, Elasticsearch, Infinispan / JBoss Cache, MongoDB, OrientDB, PestoDB / SimpleDB, Project Voldemort
Kimi K2MongoDB
One alternativeCouchbase
against: Amazon DynamoDB
MongoDBHeld
Two alternativesGoogle Cloud Firestore, Redis
against: Amazon DynamoDB
MongoDB, Redis
Three alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Neo4j
MongoDB Atlas Free Tier
One alternativePostgreSQL
against: Amazon DynamoDB
MongoDB
Three alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, InfluxDB
against: Amazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Apache CouchDB, Apache HBase, MongoDB, Riak KV
GLM 4.7 FlashXMongoDB
Three alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Couchbase
MongoDBHeld
Two alternativesCouchbase, Redis
against: Amazon DynamoDB
no first choiceMongoDB
Five alternativesApache Cassandra, Neo4j Community Edition, PostgreSQL, Redis, ScyllaDB
no first choiceagainst: 3store / 4store, AceDB, Apache Cassandra, Apache CouchDB, BerkeleyDB, MarkLogic, MongoDB, Riak KV, ScalienDB, Terrastore, Voldemort
MiniMax M2.5MongoDB
Two alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Couchbase
MongoDBHeld
Three alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Couchbase, Redis
MongoDB
Five alternativesAmazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra, Couchbase, Neo4j, Redis
MongoDB, ScyllaDB
Two alternativesApache CouchDB, Riak KV
no first choiceagainst: Amazon DynamoDBnothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:19no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:27yes45 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:44no013 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:33yes162 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 12:09yes1810 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:42yes56 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:37yes2327 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:10yes51 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 07:49no037 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 12:51yes1526 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:54yes16110 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 13:00no011 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:42no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:40yes25 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 11:39no013 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:16yes153 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:12yes247 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:54yes104 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:37yes2528 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 07:36yes51 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:19yes530 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:42yes2429 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 12:20yes2080 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:40yes541 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:46yes97 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 13:45yes47 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 13:10yes1025 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 12:49yes207 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 13:15no09 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 12:32yes106 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 12:45yes1529 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 12:24yes51 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 12:31yes1028 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:45yes1529 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:11yes14135 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:50yes1056 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 13:22no04 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 11:35no03 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:33yes1024 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:09yes193 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:57yes136 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:26yes94 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:37yes2432 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 12:15yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 12:19yes829 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:10yes1022 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:19yes15122 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 12:11yes516 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:47no04 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:48no07 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:03no016 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:06yes194 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 13:07yes138 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:27no010 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 08:30yes1542 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:15yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 13:40no038 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:21yes2027 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:41no07 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 13:06yes1238 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 13:12no05 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 13:22yes46 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:46yes2425 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:40yes204 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:10yes2410 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 13:39yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:15yes2327 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:12yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 13:00no031 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:08yes2453 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:23yes2252 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:17yes2481 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

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Category-scoped readings
DataStax Astra read as DataStax Astra DB
MongoDB Atlas read as MongoDB
Riak read as Riak KV
Unresolved, counted raw
3store / 4store
AceDB
ArangoDB Community
Ardb
BerkeleyDB
Couchbase Community Edition
Google Firebase Firestore
Hazelcast
Infinispan / JBoss Cache
JanusGraph
LevelDB
MongoDB Atlas Free Tier (M0)
Neo4j Community Edition
NeoDatis
NeoDatis/ObjectDB
Oracle Cloud NoSQL
PestoDB / SimpleDB
PostgreSQL with JSON
Postgres JSONB
Project Voldemort
Riak-style systems
RockerDB
RocksDB
ScalienDB
Sones
Terrastore
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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