Why should I use document based database instead of relational database?

Question

Why should I use document based database like CouchDB instead of using relational database. Are there any typical kinds of applications or domains where the document based d

Answer 1

To elaborate on smdelfin: flexibility. You can store data in any structure (being unstructured and all) and every document could be completely different. CouchDB specifically is useful because with their "view" indexes, you can filter out specific documents and query just that view when you want those subsets of your database.

My biggest winning point of document databases that store data in JSON format: this is the native format for JavaScript. Therefore, JavaScript web applications work incredibly-well with CouchDB. I recently made a web app that utilizes CouchDB and it's rocket fast while also able to handle a constantly-varying data structure.