Why should you care?

Feeds show newest first, leaderboards show score descending, and catalogs sort by price — users expect stable ordering.

See it live — copy this example

Open mongosh or MongoDB Compass, select database nosqlverse, then run the example. Change one field and run again.

db.products.insertMany([
  { name: "A", price: 500, rating: 4.2 },
  { name: "B", price: 500, rating: 4.8 },
  { name: "C", price: 300, rating: 4.5 }
])
db.products.find().sort({ price: 1, rating: -1 })
db.products.find().sort({ rating: -1 }).limit(2)

Run Example »

Edit the code below and click Run to see the result in Toolliyo’s live editor.

What happened?

• First sort: lowest price first; for same price, higher rating first — order C, then B, then A.
• Second query returns the top two ratings.
• limit pairs naturally with sort.

Practice next

1. Insert the three products.
2. Run both sorts and write down the order.
3. Create index { price: 1, rating: -1 } and explain the first query.
4. Sort name alphabetically.
5. Combine sort with skip for pages.

Remember

1 = ascending, -1 = descending. Multi-field sort breaks ties. Index sorts for hot paths.

App Store-like ranking

A learning app sorts courses by rating desc then enrollments desc.

Outcome: Home screen shows strongest courses first.