Difference between MongoDB and Mongoose

Mongo is NoSQL Database.

If you don't want to use any ORM for your data models then you can also use native driver mongo.js: https://github.com/mongodb/node-mongodb-native.

Mongoose is one of the orm's who give us functionality to access the mongo data with easily understandable queries.

Mongoose plays as a role of abstraction over your database model.

One more difference I found with respect to both is that it is fairly easy to connect to multiple databases with mongodb native driver while you have to use work arounds in mongoose which still have some drawbacks.

So if you wanna go for a multitenant application, go for mongodb native driver.

I assume you already know that MongoDB is a NoSQL database system which stores data in the form of BSON documents. Your question, however is about the packages for Node.js.

In terms of Node.js, mongodb is the native driver for interacting with a mongodb instance and mongoose is an Object modeling tool for MongoDB.

mongoose is built on top of the mongodb driver to provide programmers with a way to model their data.

EDIT: I do not want to comment on which is better, as this would make this answer opinionated. However I will list some advantages and disadvantages of using both approaches.

Using mongoose, a user can define the schema for the documents in a particular collection. It provides a lot of convenience in the creation and management of data in MongoDB. On the downside, learning mongoose can take some time, and has some limitations in handling schemas that are quite complex.

However, if your collection schema is unpredictable, or you want a Mongo-shell like experience inside Node.js, then go ahead and use the mongodb driver. It is the simplest to pick up. The downside here is that you will have to write larger amounts of code for validating the data, and the risk of errors is higher.

Mongodb and Mongoose are two different drivers to interact with MongoDB database.

Mongoose : object data modeling (ODM) library that provides a rigorous modeling environment for your data. Used to interact with MongoDB, it makes life easier by providing convenience in managing data.

Mongodb: native driver in Node.js to interact with MongoDB.