Introduction - eXist: A NoSQL Database and Application Development Platform - page 3

We could stop there and focus the rest of the topic on the database, but you would
really miss out on the good stuff. eXist is also a web server: you can make web
requests directly to the database to store, retrieve, or update XML documents. eXist
achieves this by providing an HTTP REST API that describes the database. It also
provides a WebDAV interface so that your users can easily drag and drop documents
from their desktops into the database, or open a document for editing.
But wait, there's more! As eXist evolved over the years it became clear that being able
to store, retrieve, and edit documents via the Web was neat, but also being able to
store XQuery into the database and execute it via a web request from your web
browser meant you could easily construct very powerful web applications directly on
top of the database. eXist of course continued to evolve here, providing new features
for forms, web application packaging, improved security, SQL queries, SSL, and sup‐
port for producing and consuming JSON and HTML 5, among other offerings.
So, in summary, what is eXist?
• A NoSQL document database for XML and binary (including text)
• A web server for consuming and serving documents
• A document search engine
• A web application platform
• A document creation and capture platform (XForms)
• A data mashup and integration platform
• An embeddable set of libraries for use in your own applications
• And much, much more
eXist Compared to Other Database Systems
Let's take a moment to discuss some of the main differences between eXist and other
SQL and NoSQL database systems. eXist is:
Document oriented
Unlike traditional RDBMSs (Relational Database Management Systems) such as
Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server, which are table oriented, eXist is a NoSQL
document-oriented database.
Many other NoSQL document databases (including MongoDB and Apache Cas‐
sandra) store JSON documents, whereas eXist stores XML documents. One of
the key advantages of XML over JSON is the ability to handle complex document
structures using mixed content . JSON easily handles data-oriented documents,
while XML easily handles both data-oriented markup and text-oriented