How do I manage MongoDB connections in a Node.js web application?

Open a new connection when the Node.js application starts, and reuse the existing db connection object:

/server.js

import express from 'express';
import Promise from 'bluebird';
import logger from 'winston';
import { MongoClient } from 'mongodb';
import config from './config';
import usersRestApi from './api/users';

const app = express();

app.use('/api/users', usersRestApi);

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello World');
});

// Create a MongoDB connection pool and start the application
// after the database connection is ready
MongoClient.connect(config.database.url, { promiseLibrary: Promise }, (err, db) => {
  if (err) {
    logger.warn(`Failed to connect to the database. ${err.stack}`);
  }
  app.locals.db = db;
  app.listen(config.port, () => {
    logger.info(`Node.js app is listening at http://localhost:${config.port}`);
  });
});

/api/users.js

import { Router } from 'express';
import { ObjectID } from 'mongodb';

const router = new Router();

router.get('/:id', async (req, res, next) => {
  try {
    const db = req.app.locals.db;
    const id = new ObjectID(req.params.id);
    const user = await db.collection('user').findOne({ _id: id }, {
      email: 1,
      firstName: 1,
      lastName: 1
    });

    if (user) {
      user.id = req.params.id;
      res.send(user);
    } else {
      res.sendStatus(404);
    }
  } catch (err) {
    next(err);
  }
});

export default router;

Source: How to Open Database Connections in a Node.js/Express App

The primary committer to node-mongodb-native says:

You open do MongoClient.connect once when your app boots up and reuse the db object. It's not a singleton connection pool each .connect creates a new connection pool.

So, to answer your question directly, reuse the db object that results from MongoClient.connect(). This gives you pooling, and will provide a noticeable speed increase as compared with opening/closing connections on each db action.