Trial Software without the Download

I came across a rather innovative concept yesterday: try before you buy, without the download!

OK, I know what you're thinking. Why am I so excited about this? That's how all SaaS software works, right. But here's the innovative part: it's a database system, mongoDB.

I've tested out a lot of software, so it's no wonder my computers always start to get a little bogged down over time. That's because, for the most part, I have to download the software, install it, and use it for a long enough period to get acquainted and figure out if it does what I want. Sometimes that means downloading 3 or more competing products, setting them up, and quickly dispatching the ones that are useless.

Since moving to the Mac, this is a lot easier since "installation" is typically just drag-and-drop (at least for the good software). But systems for developing software, such as databases, command-line shells, etc. are all a little more invasive. This is probably because they're not made for the average person, so the companies or open source organizations don't spend a lot of time making installation easy.

Microsoft has been using virtual machines for some time now to allow potential customers to try their more massive suites. They've used both a Citrix-like environment, where folks can sign up for a couple of hours on a server that's running at Microsoft, and a downloadable VM. The downloadable VM works well because it's running locally and it's usually not restricted to such a short timeframe. However, the hosted approach is better because it doesn't require a 4GB download, even if the response times are a bit sluggish and you're limited on what you can do in that shared environment. There is a minor download for the browser-based VM player, of course, but that's minor and pretty easy to install.

The interesting thing about the mongoDB trial is that there is absolutely nothing to download. Click on the "Try It Out" link and it drops down what looks like a terminal shell window. When I saw that, I was sold. Then, you can start with "help" or "tutorial" and actually use the software as if you were connecting to a DB. I figured I could at least take the time to go through the tutorial and get acquainted before deciding whether I would download the executables and install them on dev box.

This type of interface works really well for something that is shell-like. In fact, I've seen other sites with "test it out" text editors for testing client-side JavaScript functionality. But this is a bit more exciting because it's a lot more complex than just some client-side JavaScript. You can store objects, there's a near-complete JavaScript engine built-in as well -- primarily because the real shell for the DB system uses JavaScript -- and you can test out a bunch of the features of the DB.

The trial doesn't include every bit of the DB, but it does have a pretty solid feature set for getting a quick picture of how you'd use the system. I'm not sure I'll use the DB at this point, but the tutorial gave me enough information to download it and try it out for a while. I'd say it did its job.