Last Updated on May 11, 2026 by Laura Coronel

What’s MongoDB?

MongoDB is a document database which belongs to a family of databases called NoSQL – not only SQL. In MongoDB, records are documents which behave a lot like JSON objects in JavaScript. Values in documents can be looked up by their field’s key. Documents can have some fields/keys and not others, which makes Mongo extremely flexible.

This is different than SQL databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL, where fields correspond to columns in a table and individual records correspond to rows. When you need to connect MongoDB with other data sources and build data pipelines for analytics or operational workflows, tools like Integrate.io can help you set up low-code ETL and ELT pipelines across your databases, APIs, and data warehouses.

Prerequisites

You should have a general familiarity with the Windows command prompt.

Installing and Running MongoDB on a Windows Machine

• Download the MongoDB installer file from the downloads section of the MongoDB website.
• Find the dowloaded .msi file in the Windows Explorer. Double click the file and follow the prompts to install Mongo. Note: unless you specify a custom directory Mongo is most likely installed in the C:\mongodb directory**. However, based on settings on your machine Mongo may be installed other places. For example, C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\3.2. Additionally, you may find MongoDB in the add/remove programs menu.
• Create the directory where MongoDB will store it’s files. From the command prompt run md \data\db. This is the default location. However, other locations can be specified using the --dbpath parameter. See the Mongo docs for more information.
• Start the mongodb daemon by running C:\mongodb\bin\mongod.exe in the Command Prompt. Or by running, C:\path\to\mongodb\bin\mongod.exe
• Connect to MongoDB using the Mongo shell While the MongoDB daemon is running, from a different Command prompt window run C:\mongodb\bin\mongo.exe