Get a count of total documents with MongoDB when using limit

No, there is no other way. Two queries - one for count - one with limit. Or you have to use a different database. Apache Solr for instance works like you want. Every query there is limited and returns totalCount.

Mongodb 3.4 has introduced $facet aggregation

which processes multiple aggregation pipelines within a single stage on the same set of input documents.

Using $facet and $group you can find documents with $limit and can get total count.

You can use below aggregation in mongodb 3.4

db.collection.aggregate([
  { "$facet": {
    "totalData": [
      { "$match": { }},
      { "$skip": 10 },
      { "$limit": 10 }
    ],
    "totalCount": [
      { "$group": {
        "_id": null,
        "count": { "$sum": 1 }
      }}
    ]
  }}
])

Even you can use $count aggregation which has been introduced in mongodb 3.6.

You can use below aggregation in mongodb 3.6

db.collection.aggregate([
  { "$facet": {
    "totalData": [
      { "$match": { }},
      { "$skip": 10 },
      { "$limit": 10 }
    ],
    "totalCount": [
      { "$count": "count" }
    ]
  }}
])