Querying with Redis?

Question

I've been learning Node.js so I decided to make a simple ad network, but I can't seem to decide on a database to use. I've been messing around with Redis but I can't seem to find a way to query the database by specific criteria, instead I can only get the value of a key or a list or set inside a key.

Am I missing something, or should I be using a more robust database like MongoDB?

Answer 1

I would recommend to read this tutorial about Redis in order to understand its concepts and data types. I also had problems to understand why there is no querying support similar to other (no) SQL databases until I read few articles and try to test and compare Redis with other solutions. Maybe it isn't the right database for your use case, although it is very fast and supports advanced data structures, but lacks querying which is crucial for you. If you are looking for a database which allows you to query your data then you should try mongodb or maybe riak .

Answer 2

Redis is often referred to as a data structure server since keys can contain strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets.

If able(easy to implement) you should use these primitives(strings,hashes,lists,set and sorted sets). The main advantage of Redis is that is lightning fast, but that it is rather primitive key-value store (redis is a little bit more advanced). This also means that it can not be queried like for example SQL.

It would probably be easier to use a more advanced store, like for example Mongodb, which is a document-oriented database . The trade-off you make in this case is PERFORMANCE, but I believe you should only tackle that if that is becoming a problem, which it probably will not be because Mongodb is also pretty fast and has the advantage that it can be queried . I think it would be advisable to have proper indexes for your queries(read>write) to make it fast.

Answer 3

I think that the main answer comes from the data structure. Check this article about NoSQL Data Modelling, for me it was very helpful: NoSql Data Modelling .

A second good article ever about Data Modeling, and making a comparison between SQL and NoSQL is the following: The Relational model anti pattern .