Storing chat conversation in key->value (noSQL) database?

Question

I am thinking about writing a quick chat application for a client to help them solve some of their communication needs. Clearly, writing a simple chat is no brainer, but the company have serious scaling needs, so it is probably a good idea to build the service on a noSQL storage from the beginning.

Besides the obvious lack of transactions, which isn't one of our concerns, is it a good idea to use a noSQL storage for a chat?

Answer 1

MongoDB should be good enough if you're after scalability and performance. Most SQL engines would be overkill for this stuff. I doubt if you need complex data aggregation and other queries for chat data. Even with that, MongoDB has map-reduce capability to help you along.

Answer 2

NoSQL ist used if you have no fixed data model, this applies to document oriented applications where you have to store objects and documents where each one may have a different structure.

I don't think this is the case in your situation, since a chat log has a well defined fixed data model for example (user, time, text). I think a traditional SQL database may be the right fit for you. If used on client side only, SQLite will be the best fit, since there is no need to install or configure, simply redistribute the SQLite dll. Also the footprint is very small.

Answer 3

I would say no. SQLite is included in PHP... why not just use that? Or better still, why not use one of the hundreds of chat applications that already exist, and save yourself a whole load of development time.