Schema Design Anti-Patterns
On this page
Schema design anti-patterns are inefficient ways to structure your database schema. They can create unnecessary complexity and cause performance issues. Recognizing and avoiding schema design anti-patterns can help create applications with better performance.
Get Started
To learn more about schema design anti-patterns, see the following pages:
Schema Design Anti-Pattern | Definition |
|---|---|
A document stores an unbounded array that can grow to be too large. The large array can exceed the document size limit and cause a decrease in index performance. | |
You create a large number of collections in your database. Having too many collections can decrease storage engine performance. | |
Your collection contains unnecessary indexes. Unnecessary indexes consume additional disk space and can degrade write performance. | |
Your collection has excessively large documents. The large documents can degrade the performance of your most common queries. | |
You are running too many $lookup operations on your data. This increases query complexity and reduces query performance. |
Details
The MongoDB Atlas Performance Advisor (available for M10 clusters or higher) and MongoDB Compass Performance Insights identify schema design anti-patterns in your database. It is important to understand the Atlas anti-pattern warnings in order to properly correct the issues and prevent the use of anti-patterns.
Learn More
For recommended schema design patterns, see the following: Schema Design Patterns and Apply Design Patterns.