Before we started programming the new open source NoSQL database, we reflected which design objectives to achieve or to drop. This article summarizes our considerations.

In a nutshell:

• Schema-free schemas with shapes: Inherent structures at hand are automatically recognized and subsequently optimized.
• Querying: ArangoDB is able to accomplish complex operations on the provided data (query-by-example and query-language).
• Application Server: ArangoDB is able to act as application server on Javascript-devised routines.
• Mostly memory/durability: ArangoDB is memory-based including frequent file system synchronizing.
• AppendOnly/MVCC: Updates generate new versions of a document; automatic garbage collection.
• ArangoDB is multi-threaded.
• No indices on file: Only raw data is written on hard disk.
• ArangoDB supports single nodes and small, homogenous clusters with zero administration.

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