While working directly with the mongodb module is great, it's also a bit raw and lacks any sense of the developer friendliness that we've come to expect when working with frameworks such as Express in Node.js. Mongoose is a great third-party framework that makes working with MongoDB a breeze. It is an elegant mongodb object modeling for Node.js.
What that basically means is that Mongoose gives us the power to organize our database using schemas (also known as model definitions) and provides powerful features to our models, such as validation, virtual properties, and more. Mongoose is a great tool, as it makes working with collections and documents in MongoDB feel much more elegant. The original mongodb module is a dependency of Mongoose, so you can think of Mongoose as being a wrapper on top of mongodb, much like Express is a wrapper on top of Node.js--both abstract away a lot of the raw feeling and give you easier tools to work with directly.
It's important to note that...