Percona Server for MongoDB
activeby Percona · since 2015 · also known as PSMDB
Drop-in MongoDB Community build with enterprise features like encryption, LDAP and hot backup.
Overview
Percona Server for MongoDB is a free, source-available rebuild of MongoDB Community Edition that adds features MongoDB reserves for Enterprise Advanced: data-at-rest encryption with KMIP/Vault, LDAP and Kerberos authentication, audit logging, an in-memory storage engine and hot backups. It tracks upstream closely (8.0.34-15 shipped in October 2026) and pairs with Percona Backup for MongoDB and the Percona Operator for Kubernetes. It is the usual choice for teams that want enterprise-grade self-hosted MongoDB without a MongoDB subscription.
Strengths & trade-offs
Strengths
- +Free data-at-rest encryption with HashiCorp Vault or KMIP key management
- +LDAP, Kerberos and AWS IAM authentication without an Enterprise licence
- +Audit logging and an in-memory storage engine included
- +Binary-compatible drop-in for MongoDB Community; same drivers and tools
- +Kubernetes operator and physical backup tooling from the same vendor
Trade-offs
- −Inherits SSPL licensing from upstream
- −Lags upstream releases by days to weeks
- −No equivalent of Atlas Search or vector search features that MongoDB keeps proprietary
- −Linux only
Great for
- +Self-hosted MongoDB in regulated environments needing encryption and audit
- +Replacing MongoDB Enterprise Advanced to cut licence costs
- +MongoDB on Kubernetes with an open operator
Think twice for
- −Teams wanting a fully managed service
- −Workloads relying on Atlas-only search or vector features
Capabilities
Native or official first-party support · 15 of 25 tracked
Scale & consistency
- Comfortable data size
- Large · ≤ 1 PB
- Horizontal scaling
- Native
- Multi-region
- Read replicas
- Transactions
- Full ACID
- Consistency
- Tunable, Causal
- Schema
- Flexible
- Architecture
- Primary replica, Distributed, Client server
- Query languages
- MongoDB Query API (MQL), Aggregation pipeline
Same replica-set and sharding architecture as upstream MongoDB.
Deployment
Ecosystem
Alternatives to Percona Server for MongoDB
The default document database: flexible BSON documents, rich queries and built-in sharding.
percona-server-mongodb vs mongodb →MongoDB's own multi-cloud DBaaS, bundling search, vector search and stream processing.
percona-server-mongodb vs mongodb-atlas →MIT-licensed, MongoDB-compatible document engine built as PostgreSQL extensions, run by the Linux Foundation.
percona-server-mongodb vs documentdb-postgres →Apache-licensed MongoDB-protocol proxy that stores data in PostgreSQL with the DocumentDB extension.
percona-server-mongodb vs ferretdb →AWS's managed MongoDB-API database on a proprietary, Aurora-style storage layer.
percona-server-mongodb vs amazon-documentdb →A drop-in MySQL build that ships enterprise features (thread pool, audit, encryption) as free GPL code.
percona-server-mongodb vs percona-server-mysql →Percona Server for MongoDB FAQ
What is Percona Server for MongoDB?
Percona Server for MongoDB is a document database by Percona, first released in 2015. Percona Server for MongoDB is a free, source-available rebuild of MongoDB Community Edition that adds features MongoDB reserves for Enterprise Advanced: data-at-rest encryption with KMIP/Vault, LDAP and Kerberos authentication, audit logging, an in-memory storage engine and hot backups. It tracks upstream closely (8.0.34-15 shipped in October 2026) and pairs with Percona Backup for MongoDB and the Percona Operator for Kubernetes. It is the usual choice for teams that want enterprise-grade self-hosted MongoDB without a MongoDB subscription.
Is Percona Server for MongoDB open source?
Not in the OSI sense. Percona Server for MongoDB is source-available: you can read the code, but the license restricts some uses, typically offering it as a competing managed service. License: Server Side Public License v1.
Does Percona Server for MongoDB support ACID transactions?
Yes. Percona Server for MongoDB supports full ACID transactions, with tunable, causal consistency.
Does Percona Server for MongoDB scale horizontally?
Percona Server for MongoDB scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at large scale (≤ 1 PB). It supports cross-region read replicas.
How can I run Percona Server for MongoDB?
You can self-host it.
What is Percona Server for MongoDB best for?
Percona Server for MongoDB is a strong fit for self-hosted MongoDB in regulated environments needing encryption and audit; replacing MongoDB Enterprise Advanced to cut licence costs; and MongoDB on Kubernetes with an open operator. Think twice for teams wanting a fully managed service.
What are the best alternatives to Percona Server for MongoDB?
Common alternatives to Percona Server for MongoDB include MongoDB; MongoDB Atlas; DocumentDB (open-source, PostgreSQL-based); FerretDB; and Amazon DocumentDB. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.
How popular is Percona Server for MongoDB?
Percona Server for MongoDB ranks #372 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (5.9/100), and #34 among document databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.