There are two main approaches to handling transactions: either we follow ACID or BASE principles. All other approaches are just variations of the two; we can even say that, to a certain degree, BASE is a variation of ACID. Furthermore, some databases may pick to support ACID transactions for part of operations, while not providing the same quarantine for others – just like MongoDB here.

In today’s text, I will cover the description of both abbreviations, and their use cases, closing with an in-depth summary of the differences between them. For now, let’s say that the biggest difference between the two is: that ACID prioritizes consistency over availability, while BASE prioritizes availability over consistency.