MongoDB is an open source document-oriented NoSQL database that uses JSON-like documents with dynamic schemas to store data. It works with collections and documents where a collection is a group of documents and a document is a set of key-value pairs. MongoDB can scale horizontally, provides high availability through replication, and allows for fast in-place updates. It is commonly used for big data, content management, mobile applications, and user data management. To use MongoDB, download it, optionally specify an alternate data directory, and run the mongod.exe process which will be waiting for connections once started successfully.