MongoDB is a document-oriented NoSQL database that uses flexible schemas and provides high performance, high availability, and easy scalability. It uses either MMAP or WiredTiger storage engines and supports features like sharding, aggregation pipelines, geospatial indexing, and GridFS for large files. While MongoDB has better performance than Cassandra or Couchbase according to benchmarks, it has limitations such as a single-threaded aggregation and lack of joins across collections.