node-mongodb-native is a free, open source databases project written in TypeScript and released under Apache-2.0. It has 10,171 GitHub stars, 1,819 forks and 25 open issues, and was last pushed 9 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #80 of 206 tracked projects in Databases, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available.

What is node-mongodb-native?

The MongoDB Node.js Driver is the official MongoDB client library for Node.js, published on npm as mongodb, and it is intended for Node.js developers and backend teams whose applications read from and write to MongoDB servers.

What it is

node-mongodb-native is the official MongoDB driver for Node.js, written in TypeScript and licensed under Apache-2.0. It sits in this registry under Infrastructure & Operations / Databases, tagged database, mongodb, node-js, nodejs, and nosql, and it occupies the driver layer between application code and a MongoDB deployment. The repository carries 10,178 stars, 1,824 forks, and 25 open issues, with the most recent push on 17 September 2026.

The problem it solves is that a Node.js application needs a maintained, versioned, security-reviewed way to talk to MongoDB, instead of connectivity code that each team writes and maintains alone. The driver documents support for MongoDB 4.4+ servers, follows semantic versioning for its releases, and ships an upgrade guide for version 7 in etc/notes/CHANGES_7.0.0.md, along with a changelog in HISTORY.md, so a major upgrade has a documented path rather than a diff to read.

Key capabilities

  • Distributed on npm as the package mongodb, with documentation at mongodb.com/docs/drivers/node and API reference at mongodb.github.io/node-mongodb-native.
  • Signed releases: packages are signed with the Node team GPG key (node-driver.asc), with a detached signature file named mongodb-X.Y.Z.tgz.sig that is checked with gpg --verify.
  • Provenance attestation published to npm, verifiable with npm audit signatures, cryptographically linking the package to its source repository and build workflow.
  • Semantic versioning across releases, with a dedicated upgrade guide at etc/notes/CHANGES_7.0.0.md for the version 7 transition.
  • Documented server compatibility of MongoDB 4.4 and above.
  • Bug and feature tracking in MongoDB JIRA under the NODE project, where reports for NODE, PYTHON, CSHARP, JAVA, and the Core Server project are public.
  • Change history maintained in HISTORY.md, with contribution guidance in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Who uses it and how

  • Node.js backend teams running production services against MongoDB 4.4+ servers, using the driver as the connection layer inside their application code.
  • Teams moving an existing codebase across a major version, who follow the version 7 upgrade guide to work through breaking changes.
  • Organizations with supply-chain requirements, who verify release packages with GPG using node-driver.asc and confirm npm provenance with npm audit signatures.
  • Teams that want support through the MongoDB Community Forums and the public JIRA trackers; the README asks that developers not be emailed directly with issues or questions.
  • Developers learning the driver through MongoDB University catalog material filtered to Node.js and through the MongoDB Developer Center.

Getting started

Install the driver from npm as the package mongodb, with setup documentation at mongodb.com/docs/drivers/node/current/ and API reference at mongodb.github.io/node-mongodb-native.

How it compares

The facts provide no list of paid products this project replaces, and they name no other Node.js MongoDB drivers or comparable tools. On the evidence given, it stands alone in this registry as the official MongoDB-maintained Node.js client, distinguished by vendor ownership and by its documented release-signing and provenance process rather than by any stated head-to-head comparison.

When to use it — and when not to

The driver itself operates no database, storage, or SMTP of its own, but a self-hoster still has to run and maintain a MongoDB deployment, since the README documents support only for 4.4+ servers. Teams not using MongoDB, or those who need bug reports tracked in the GitHub repository or commercial support handled through a vendor contract, should look elsewhere: issues go to JIRA, and the README notes that no GPG verification is performed when installing through npm. The compatibility section of the provided README excerpt is also truncated, so the full server and runtime matrix should be checked against the published documentation before committing.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

MongoDB Node.js Driver

The official MongoDB driver for Node.js.

Upgrading to version 7? Take a look at our upgrade guide here!

Quick Links

Release Integrity

Releases are created automatically and signed using the Node team's GPG key. All release packages provided as part of a GitHub release are signed. To verify the provided packages, download the key and import it using gpg:

gpg --import node-driver.asc

The GitHub release contains a detached signature file for the NPM package (named mongodb-X.Y.Z.tgz.sig).

The following command returns the link npm package.

npm view mongodb@vX.Y.Z dist.tarball

Using the result of the above command, a curl command can return the official npm package for the release.

To verify the integrity of the downloaded package, run the following command:

gpg --verify mongodb-X.Y.Z.tgz.sig mongodb-X.Y.Z.tgz

[!Note] No GPG verification is done when using npm to install the package. The contents of the GitHub tarball and npm's tarball are identical.

Releases published to the npm registry also include a provenance attestation, which cryptographically links the package to its source repository and build workflow. To verify provenance:

npm audit signatures

The MongoDB Node.js driver follows semantic versioning for its releases.

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

The driver currently supports 4.4+ servers.

For exhaustive server and runtime version compatibility matrices, please refer to the following links:

Component Support Matrix

The following table describes add-on component version compatibility for the Node.js driver. Only packages with versions in these supported ranges are stable when used in combination.

| Component | mongodb@3.x | mongodb@4.x | mongodb@5.x | mongodb@=6.12 | mongodb@7.x | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------ | ------------------ | ------------------ | --------------- | ------------------ | ------------- | | bson | ^1.0.0 | ^4.0.0 | ^5.0.0 | ^6.0.0 | ^6.0.0 | ^7.0.0 | | bson-ext | ^1.0.0 || ^2.0.0 | ^4.0.0 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | | kerberos | ^1.0.0 | ^1.0.0 || ^2.0.0 | ^1.0.0 || ^2.0.0 | ^2.0.1 | ^2.0.1 | ^7.0.0 | | mongodb-client-encryption | ^1.0.0 | ^1.0.0 || ^2.0.0 | ^2.3.0 | ^6.0.0 | ^6.0.0 | ^7.0.0 | | mongodb-legacy | N/A | ^4.0.0 | ^5.0.0 | ^6.0.0 | ^6.0.0 | N/A | | @mongodb-js/zstd | N/A | ^1.0.0 | ^1.0.0 | ^1.1.0 | ^1.1.0 || ^2.0.0 | ^7.0.0 |

Typescript Version

We recommend using the latest version of typescript, however we currently ensure the driver's public types compile against typescript@5.6.0. 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.

Additionally, our Typescript types are compatible with the ECMAScript standard for our minimum supported Node version. Currently, our Typescript targets es2023.

Running in Custom Runtimes

We are working on removing Node.js as a dependency of the driver, so that in the future it will be possible to use the driver in non-Node environments. This work is currently in progress, and if you're curious, this is our first runtime adapter commit.

Some things to keep in mind if you are using a non-Node runtime:

  1. Users of Webpack/Vite may need to prevent crypto polyfill injection.
  2. Auth mechanism SCRAM-SHA-1 has a hard dependency on Node.js.
  3. Auth mechanism SCRAM-SHA-1 is not supported in FIPS mode.

Installation

The recommended way to get started using the Node.js 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

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:

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

Third party:

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
cd 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.

  1. Download the right MongoDB version from MongoDB
  2. Create a database directory (in this case under /data).
  3. 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(, { 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 documents 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
}

Nightly releases

If you need to test with a change from the latest main branch, our mongodb npm package has nightly versions released under the nightly tag.

npm install mongodb@nightly

Nightly versions are published regardless of testing outcome. This means there could be semantic breakages or partially implemented features. The nightly build is not suitable for production use.

Experimental Features

The MongoDB Node.js driver offers cutting-edge experimental features that give you early access to new capabilities and APIs. These features are marked with @experimental tags and are great for exploring new functionality and providing feedback.

Experimental features are not subject to semantic versioning rules, so breaking changes or removal may occur in any future release. The use of these features is not recommended for production environments.

Explore the full list of experimental features, complete with descriptions and usage examples, in EXPERIMENTAL_FEATURES.md.

Next Steps

License

Apache 2.0

© 2012-present MongoDB Contributors
© 2009-2012 Christian Amor Kvalheim

Frequently asked questions

Is node-mongodb-native free to use?

node-mongodb-native is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does node-mongodb-native do?

The official MongoDB Node.js driver

What is node-mongodb-native written in?

node-mongodb-native is primarily written in TypeScript. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/mongodb/node-mongodb-native, and it has 10,171 GitHub stars.