title: Why do the MongoDB docs recommend not using DBREFs?
body: <p>The <a href="https://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/database-references/" rel="noreferrer">MongoDB docs for DBREFs</a> say:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Unless you have a compelling reason to use DBRefs, use manual references instead.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Why? DBREFs seem more easy to use, since they encode the database and collection names, which would lead to less hard-coding in the application. Plus, DBREF is <a href="https://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/database-references/#driver-support-for-dbrefs" rel="noreferrer">a standard format that many drivers understand</a>.</p>
  
  <p>This question is related, but not exactly the same:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9412341/mongodb-is-dbref-necessary">MongoDB - is DBREF necessary?</a></p>
  
  <p>The answer to that question is that embedding/denormalization is preferable to linking, but it doesn't answer the question of why manual linking is preferable to DBREFs.</p>