MongoDB is certainly one of the most popular open-source, document-oriented NoSQL databases, where the management of a MongoDB instance is accomplished through the capable mongo shell command-line application. From the shell, you have access to database manipulation functions based on JavaScript and BSON (Binary JSON) for controlling all aspects of MongoDB server, from creating databases and collections to adding, removing, and modifying documents to defining indexes to executing MapReduce operations.

Why a GUI is important?

A Graphical user interface (GUI) is important because it allows higher productivity, while facilitating a lower cognitive load. Graphical user interfaces allow users to interact with computers using a mouse and other input tools. They give developers more freedom with how they display information, images and other elements.

Some of the Well-known GUIs

RockMongo – The flexible and extensible

RockMongo is a browser-based management application written in PHP. It requires at least PHP 5 to execute. Beyond that, it’s only other dependency is the php_mongo driver.

RockMongo is not a single PHP file; it unpacks to a directory tree of JavaScript files, themes, and other application components. Nevertheless, the installation is pretty simple.

You can configure RockMongo to use either the authentication provided by MongoDB itself or a hard-coded administrator name/password pair in the application’s config.php file. (MongoDB authentication, which is disabled by default, stores user credentials in a special “system” collection in the database. Each document in this collection maps user names to user roles.) You have to modify config.php in any case to set parameters such as the GUI’s theme and the IP address and port of the MongoDB server.

RockMongo’s interface is easy. To create a database, click the database menu item, select ‘Create a New Database’, enter a name, click ‘OK’, and there you go. This is in keeping with MongoDB’s simple mechanism for creating databases or collections. There are few parameters to adjust. You just create a database, put a collection in it, and start filling that collection with documents.

Key Features of RockMongo:

• Open-source under New BSD License.
• Runs fast and is easy to install.
• I18N (English, Chinese, French, Japanese, British, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian).
• Plug-ins – Anyone can develop their own plug-ins.
• Themes – You can customize themes easily for your users or company

Screenshot:

Latest Versions Download link : http://rockmongo.com/downloads

phpMoAdmin – Easy install, busy GUI

The entirety of phpMoAdmin resides in the solitary PHP file, moadmin.php. This, of course, makes it exceedingly easy to install. Just create a folder in your Web server’s webroot directory, drop the moadmin.php file into it, and you’re all set.

Main Features of phpMoAdmin:

Database:

• List with data sizes
• Create/drop
• Repair/compact

Collection:

• Show list of collections with number of objects within each
• Create/rename/drop collection
• List indexes
• Create/drop indexes
• multiple keys
• ascending/descending
• unique index

Data Objects:

• Single smart-search box accepts
• exact-text
• (type-casted) value
• text with * wildcards
• Regular Expressions (regex)
• JSON (with Mongo-operators enabled)
• Option to query MongoDB using JSON or a PHP array
• Show objects with 3-different viewing options (full, compact & uniform)

Screenshot:

You can download the phpMoAdmin app from the official website: http://www.phpmoadmin.com/file/phpmoadmin.zip.

MongoHub – A native Mac GUI for MongoDB.

MongoHub provides you an option to connect to your MongoDB server through a SSH tunnel, which is convenient from a security perspective. The “StatMonitor” feature give you a live display of stats a.k.a mongostat. The query interface is a little bit more limited in that as it only seems to support a tree view. Also, there is no way to save a find query for later. In our experience, the software appears to work fairly well but it doesn’t look like it is being maintained – so use this one at your own risk.

Key Features of MongoHub:

• It provides a graphical interface for the command line.
• The app does not come packed with complex options or configuration settings, making it accessible to all types of users, even those with no kind of experience with Mongodb.

Screenshot:

Download Link: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Servers/Database-Utils/MongoHub.shtml

MongoBooster – A shell-centric cross-platform GUI tool for MongoDB v2.2-3.2

This is a shell-centric cross-platform GUI tool for MongoDB v2.2-3.2, which provides update-in-place, Lodash & Moment.js integration, ES6 syntax support, and true intellisense experience.

Key Features of MongoBooster:

• MongoBooster offers true IntelliSense experience. The build-in language service knows all the possible completions, methods, properties, variables, key words, even the MongoDB collection names, field names and operators. The IntelliSense suggestions will pop up as you type.
• In the script editor, parameter hints will pop up as you’re typing a method invocation. It also displays handy date range snippets and SQL to MongoDB conversion snippets.
• The mouse hover will show many useful information, such as types of symbols, function definition, type information, and document.
• Matching brackets will be highlighted as soon as the cursor is near one of them.
• Everything MongoBooster can do is in the Command Palette. You can view it by using shortcuts CTRL-SHIFT-P.
• There is a free license.

Screenshot:

Download Link —  http://mongobooster.com .

RoboMongo:

RoboMongo is shell-centric MongoDB GUI that supports Windows, MacOS and Linux platforms. RoboMongo is still in its early stage with the latest version being 0.8.4. It is also one of the very few GUIs that supports SSL connections to your MongoDB server. There is also support for connecting through a SSH tunnel. The query interface displays data in tree view, table view and text view. You can also save your queries for later usage. One of the coolest features is that it also has support for the shell, so that you can still continue to use the shell commands that you are comfortable with. There are some quirks in the UI which I believe will get worked out over time. If actively maintained, I have faith that this could be the best cross platform GUI for MongoDB.

Key Features of RoboMongo:

• Full Power of a MongoDB JavaScript environment. Robomongo embeds a complete JavaScript engine (based on Mozilla SpiderMonkey).
• Multiple shells – Open as many shells as you need. Every tab in Robomongo is a MongoDB shell, fully isolated from each other.
• Multiple Results – Robomongo executes your code in a statement-by-statement manner. Meaning, you will receive as many result as the number of statements you have.
• Auto-completion – Robomongo provides you with auto-completion for all objects (and thus functions) that are known by JavaScript runtime, including auto-completion for databases, collections and even your document objects.
• Cross-platform and open-source.

Screenshot:

Download Link — http://app.robomongo.org/download.html

Conclusion:

A good UI is an important part of the development experience. The mongo shell works great for administrative actions but when working with larger amounts of data, the UI becomes very important. There are a number of options when it comes to MongoDB GUI, some good and some not so good. If looking for the most recommended UI, then the above are some of the options for MongoDB UI which are considered primarily. Our main scenarios are data visualization, presentation, and editing. As always, your choice of graphic user interface might vary depending on your scenario and preferences.