MongoDB Node.js Driver

The official MongoDB driver for Node.js.

Upgrading to version 5? Take a look at our upgrade guide here!

Quick Links

Site
Link

Documentation
www.mongodb.com/docs/drivers/node

API Docs
mongodb.github.io/node-mongodb-native
npm package
www.npmjs.com/package/mongodb

MongoDB
www.mongodb.com

MongoDB University
learn.mongodb.com

MongoDB Developer Center
www.mongodb.com/developer

Stack Overflow
stackoverflow.com

Source Code
github.com/mongodb/node-mongodb-native

Upgrade to v5
etc/notes/CHANGES_5.0.0.md

Contributing
CONTRIBUTING.md

Changelog
HISTORY.md

Bugs / Feature Requests

Think you’ve found a bug? Want to see a new feature in node-mongodb-native? Please open a
case in our issue management tool, JIRA:

Create an account and login jira.mongodb.org.
Navigate to the NODE project jira.mongodb.org/browse/NODE.
Click Create Issue – Please provide as much information as possible about the issue type and how to reproduce it.

Bug reports in JIRA for all driver projects (i.e. NODE, PYTHON, CSHARP, JAVA) and the
Core Server (i.e. SERVER) project are public.

Support / Feedback

For issues with, questions about, or feedback for the Node.js driver, please look into our support channels. Please do not email any of the driver developers directly with issues or questions – you’re more likely to get an answer on the MongoDB Community Forums.

Change Log

Change history can be found in HISTORY.md.

Compatibility

For version compatibility matrices, please refer to the following links:

Typescript Version

We recommend using the latest version of typescript, however we currently ensure the driver’s public types compile against [email protected].
This is the lowest typescript version guaranteed to work with our driver: older versions may or may not work – use at your own risk.
Since typescript does not restrict breaking changes to major versions we consider this support best effort.
If you run into any unexpected compiler failures against our supported TypeScript versions please let us know by filing an issue on our JIRA.

Installation

The recommended way to get started using the Node.js 5.x driver is by using the npm (Node Package Manager) to install the dependency in your project.

After you’ve created your own project using npm init, you can run:

npm install mongodb

or ... yarn add mongodb

This will download the MongoDB driver and add a dependency entry in your package.json file.

If you are a Typescript user, you will need the Node.js type definitions to use the driver’s definitions:

npm install -D @types/node

Driver Extensions

The MongoDB driver can optionally be enhanced by the following feature packages:

Maintained by MongoDB:

Zstd network compression – @mongodb-js/zstd
MongoDB field level and queryable encryption – mongodb-client-encryption
GSSAPI / SSPI / Kerberos authentication – kerberos

Some of these packages include native C++ extensions.
Consult the trouble shooting guide here if you run into compilation issues.

Third party:

Snappy network compression – snappy
AWS authentication – @aws-sdk/credential-providers

Quick Start

This guide will show you how to set up a simple application using Node.js and MongoDB. Its scope is only how to set up the driver and perform the simple CRUD operations. For more in-depth coverage, see the official documentation.

Create the `package.json` file

First, create a directory where your application will live.

mkdir myProject

myProject

Enter the following command and answer the questions to create the initial structure for your new project:

npm init -y

Next, install the driver as a dependency.

npm install mongodb

Start a MongoDB Server

For complete MongoDB installation instructions, see the manual.

Download the right MongoDB version from MongoDB
Create a database directory (in this case under /data).
Install and start a mongod process.

mongod --dbpath=/data

You should see the mongod process start up and print some status information.

Connect to MongoDB

Create a new app.js file and add the following code to try out some basic CRUD
operations using the MongoDB driver.

Add code to connect to the server and the database myProject:

NOTE: Resolving DNS Connection issues

Node.js 18 changed the default DNS resolution ordering from always prioritizing ipv4 to the ordering
returned by the DNS provider. In some environments, this can result in localhost resolving to
an ipv6 address instead of ipv4 and a consequent failure to connect to the server.

This can be resolved by:

specifying the ip address family using the MongoClient family option (MongoClient(<uri>, { family: 4 } ))

launching mongod or mongos with the ipv6 flag enabled (–ipv6 mongod option documentation)

using a host of 127.0.0.1 in place of localhost

specifying the DNS resolution ordering with the --dns-resolution-order Node.js command line argument (e.g. node --dns-resolution-order=ipv4first)

const
 {
 MongoClient }
 =
 require
(
'mongodb'
)
;
// or as an es module:
// import { MongoClient } from 'mongodb'

// Connection URL
const
 url
 =
 'mongodb://localhost:27017'
;
const
 client
 =
 new
 MongoClient
(
url
)
;

// Database Name
const
 dbName
 =
 'myProject'
;

async
 function
 main
(
)
 {
  // Use connect method to connect to the server
  await
 client
.
connect
(
)
;
  console
.
log
(
'Connected successfully to server'
)
;
  const
 db
 =
 client
.
db
(
dbName
)
;
  const
 collection
 =
 db
.
collection
(
'documents'
)
;

  // the following code examples can be pasted here...

  return
 'done.'
;
}

main
(
)
  .
then
(
console
.
log
)
  .
catch
(
console
.
error
)
  .
finally
(
(
)
 =>
 client
.
close
(
)
)
;

Run your app from the command line with:

node app.js

The application should print Connected successfully to server to the console.

Insert a Document

Add to app.js the following function which uses the insertMany
method to add three documents to the documents collection.

const
 insertResult
 =
 await
 collection
.
insertMany
(
[
{
 a
: 1
 }
,
 {
 a
: 2
 }
,
 {
 a
: 3
 }
]
)
;
console
.
log
(
'Inserted documents =>'
,
 insertResult
)
;

The insertMany command returns an object with information about the insert operations.

Find All Documents

Add a query that returns all the documents.

const
 findResult
 =
 await
 collection
.
find
(
{
}
)
.
toArray
(
)
;
console
.
log
(
'Found documents =>'
,
 findResult
)
;

This query returns all the documents in the documents collection.
If you add this below the insertMany example you’ll see the document’s you’ve inserted.

Find Documents with a Query Filter

Add a query filter to find only documents which meet the query criteria.

const
 filteredDocs
 =
 await
 collection
.
find
(
{
 a
: 3
 }
)
.
toArray
(
)
;
console
.
log
(
'Found documents filtered by { a: 3 } =>'
,
 filteredDocs
)
;

Only the documents which match 'a' : 3 should be returned.

Update a document

The following operation updates a document in the documents collection.

const
 updateResult
 =
 await
 collection
.
updateOne
(
{
 a
: 3
 }
,
 {
 $set
: {
 b
: 1
 }
 }
)
;
console
.
log
(
'Updated documents =>'
,
 updateResult
)
;

The method updates the first document where the field a is equal to 3 by adding a new field b to the document set to 1. updateResult contains information about whether there was a matching document to update or not.

Remove a document

Remove the document where the field a is equal to 3.

const
 deleteResult
 =
 await
 collection
.
deleteMany
(
{
 a
: 3
 }
)
;
console
.
log
(
'Deleted documents =>'
,
 deleteResult
)
;

Index a Collection

Indexes can improve your application’s
performance. The following function creates an index on the a field in the
documents collection.

const
 indexName
 =
 await
 collection
.
createIndex
(
{
 a
: 1
 }
)
;
console
.
log
(
'index name ='
,
 indexName
)
;

For more detailed information, see the indexing strategies page.

Error Handling

If you need to filter certain errors from our driver we have a helpful tree of errors described in etc/notes/errors.md.

It is our recommendation to use instanceof checks on errors and to avoid relying on parsing error.message and error.name strings in your code.
We guarantee instanceof checks will pass according to semver guidelines, but errors may be sub-classed or their messages may change at any time, even patch releases, as we see fit to increase the helpfulness of the errors.

Any new errors we add to the driver will directly extend an existing error class and no existing error will be moved to a different parent class outside of a major release.
This means instanceof will always be able to accurately capture the errors that our driver throws.

const
 client
 =
 new
 MongoClient
(
url
)
;
await
 client
.
connect
(
)
;
const
 collection
 =
 client
.
db
(
)
.
collection
(
'collection'
)
;

try
 {
  await
 collection
.
insertOne
(
{
 _id
: 1
 }
)
;
  await
 collection
.
insertOne
(
{
 _id
: 1
 }
)
;
 // duplicate key error
}
 catch
 (
error
)
 {
  if
 (
error
 instanceof
 MongoServerError
)
 {
    console
.
log
(
`Error worth logging: 
${
error
}
`)
;
 // special case for some reason
  }
  throw
 error
;
 // still want to crash
}