CarGurus boosts developer productivity with MongoDB Atlas

THEIR CHALLENGE

Using MongoDB to optimize database operations for CarGurus

The days of car purchases taking place exclusively at dealerships are behind us. Online automotive marketplaces have risen in popularity, largely driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. A study conducted by CarGurus found that 69% of shoppers want to conduct more of the car-buying process from home.

CarGurus, an online automotive marketplace, partners with dealers to collect and share vehicle listing data. This helps consumers search for cars in their area and compare listings by price, features, and dealership reputation. The company initially relied only on an open source relational database management system to host this large volume of data.

“Our business is in helping car buyers and sellers connect with dealers with confidence and ease, not managing a database,” said Carlos Suarez, senior database engineer at CarGurus. “Self-managing any type of database can be expensive, time-consuming, and takes resources away from your core mission.”

In 2018, CarGurus added MongoDB Community Edition to its tech stack, taking advantage of the NoSQL database’s speed of development and ease of management. As the volume of data grew, the company realized that the fully managed MongoDB Atlas would reduce overhead even further. Instead of managing databases or handling aspects like disaster recovery, CarGurus could focus on its core business.

OUR SOLUTION

Accelerating time to market and reducing costs 

In 2021, CarGurus began migrating its databases to MongoDB Atlas on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Because MongoDB Atlas is fully managed, the company does not need to manage servers or optimize these databases for availability, disaster recovery, or performance tuning. The company also adopted  to store and analyze temporal data.

With MongoDB Atlas, CarGurus’s developers can focus on coding rather than database management, which boosts their productivity. Thanks to MongoDB Atlas’s cost optimization features, including monitoring and right-sizing suggestions, the company has reduced operational overhead and costs associated with its databases. The streamlined database provisioning process has also accelerated time to market for new features, from weeks to under 10 minutes.

“With MongoDB Atlas, I don’t spend more than 5 minutes on provisioning, and hopefully, those 5 minutes will become zero later this year,” said Suarez. “The ability to push features faster, from conception to release, brings significant benefits for the company.”

THE RESULTS

Realizing additional value with MongoDB Atlas

CarGurus has successfully migrated a substantial portion of its MongoDB databases to MongoDB Atlas so far and plans to continue the migration process to completion. As it moves forward, the company will continue to use MongoDB to optimize its operations and enhance its services.

MongoDB Atlas has provided significant value to CarGurus, streamlining database management and improving operational efficiency. Thanks to its fully managed nature, the company can focus on core business objectives rather than database administration. CarGurus looks forward to exploring future opportunities and taking advantage of MongoDB's capabilities even further.

“Now that we don’t have to manage the operational aspects of our databases, we can focus on growth and innovation,” said Suarez. “MongoDB Atlas has become an integral part of our technology stack.”