I’m an early adopter of MongoDB (since 1.X inception). When I first started using it I was so impressed that I immediately started using it in new production applications. 6 years later (now), MongoDB is still and always will be the backbone database structure in a plethora of MKN production applications in every market (Education, Online games, Stats, Finance, Ecommerce, Data warehousing, Digital Streams, the list goes on…).

Over the years I’ve gotten to master MongoDB inside and out, and as much as I love working by command line interface, there becomes a point where it’s “nice to have” a GUI for certain speedy situations.

My first GUI (server side) was RockMongo. It’s extremely fast (because it’s server side) and super easy to use. I still use it for a few applications! However, the repo has lost support and hasn’t been updated since 2014. It has a fairly nice interface (no need for icon BS because it is so simplified), but it is still limited in it’s capabilities.

I was reluctant to try phpMoAdmin (I never was a fan of phpMyAdmin), but I figured I’d still try it out. I think only after 10 minutes of using it I discarded it without looking back. It is a nicely compressed tool (only 95KB), but it just looks awful and isn’t pleasant to look at – they have a couple templates to pick from, but it just felt so extremely home-made.

MongoHub was my first client-side GUI. Obviously a bit slower (again client side), but very nicely designed, simplified and functionality right to the point. I can’t tell you how many times this software has bugged out on me and crashed completely. It was being maintained for a while, but still had too many issues. The last patch was rolled out April 2015.

My experience with MongoVUE was very short term, it felt like I was using Windows XP software on a nice sleek Mac OSX interface.

Regardless, MongoVUE’s website isn’t even accessible today.

Okay, on to the better!

Robomongo, oh how awesome you were! Although still under <1.0 version, RoboMongo was everything I needed in one tool. A quickly growing team, high daily downloads (1,500+ / day), cross platform software = a mixture of perfect supply & demand. I was using Robomongo up until two weeks ago. It has all the functionality a DBA is looking for including a stylish, well designed platform with UX in mind.

I experienced a few bugs, but nothing major. End of 2015 was a little unstable for Robomongo as they were looking for funding to keep the project alive, luckily their crowdsource campaign helped a little bit @ 25% funding, see the very witty video. I’d say it definitely shook up the users though. They’ve officially monetized the product with monthly subscription fees (Personal @ $12/mo & Business @ $15/mo), but they still have a “free and open-source”, but it has limitations.

Hello MongoChef! This tool has it all – complex functionality for your master DBA as well as basic drag and drop capabilities to access complex queries. It has an extremely similar design to Robomongo, but it thrives in it’s extended functionality. This is the first client-side tool that hasn’t crashed yet! Enough blabber, check it out here.