What did MongoDB not being ACID compliant before v4 really mean?

Question

I am not a database expert and have no formal computer science background, so bear with me. I want to know the kinds of real world negative things that can happen

Answer 1

It's actually not correct that MongoDB is not ACID-compliant. On the contrary, MongoDB is ACID-compilant at the document level.

Any update to a single document is

• Atomic: it either fully completes or it does not
• Consistent: no reader will see a "partially applied" update
• Isolated: again, no reader will see a "dirty" read
• Durable: (with the appropriate write concern)

What MongoDB doesn't have is transactions -- that is, multiple-document updates that can be rolled back and are ACID-compliant.

Note that you can build transactions on top of the ACID-compliant updates to a single document, by using two-phase commit.