MongoDB: How to Use Greater Than & Less Than in Queries

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You can use the following operators in MongoDB to perform greater than or less than queries:

• $lt: Less than
• $lte: Less than or equal
• $gt: Greater than
• $gte: Greater than or equal

The following methods show common ways to use these operators:

Method 1: Greater Than Query

db.myCollection.find({field1: {$gt:25}})

Method 2: Less Than Query

db.myCollection.find({field1: {$lt:25}})

Method 3: Greater Than and Less Than Query

db.myCollection.find({field1: {$gt:25, $lt:32}})

Method 4: Greater Than or Less Than Query

db.myCollection.find({ "$or": [ {"field1": {$gt: 30}}, {"field1": {$lt: 20}} ] })

The following examples show how to use each method in practice with a collection teams with the following documents:

db.teams.insertOne({team: "Mavs", points: 31})
db.teams.insertOne({team: "Spurs", points: 22})
db.teams.insertOne({team: "Rockets", points: 19})
db.teams.insertOne({team: "Warriors", points: 26})
db.teams.insertOne({team: "Cavs", points: 33})

Example 1: Greater Than Query

The following code shows how to query for all documents where the value in the “points” field is greater than 25:

db.teams.find({points: {$gt:25}})

This query returns the following documents:

{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e764f"),
  team: 'Mavs',
  points: 31 }
{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e7652"),
  team: 'Warriors',
  points: 26 }
{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e7653"),
  team: 'Cavs',
  points: 33 } 

Notice that each of the three documents in the output have a value in the “points” field greater than 25.

Example 2: Less Than Query

The following code shows how to query for all documents where the value in the “points” field is less than 25:

db.teams.find({points: {$lt:25}})

This query returns the following documents:

{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e7650"),
  team: 'Spurs',
  points: 22 }
{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e7651"),
  team: 'Rockets',
  points: 19 } 

Notice that both of the documents in the output have a value in the “points” field less than 25.

Example 3: Greater Than and Less Than

The following code shows how to query for all documents where the value in the “points” field is greater than 25 and less than 32:

db.teams.find({points: {$gt:25, $lt:32}})

This query returns the following documents:

{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e764f"),
  team: 'Mavs',
  points: 31 }
{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e7652"),
  team: 'Warriors',
  points: 26 } 

Notice that both of the documents in the output have a value in the “points” field greater than 25 and less than 32.

Example 4: Greater Than or Less Than

The following code shows how to query for all documents where the value in the “points” field is greater than 30 or less than 20:

db.teams.find({ "$or": [ {"points": {$gt: 30}}, {"points": {$lt: 20}} ] })

This query returns the following documents:

{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e764f"),
  team: 'Mavs',
  points: 31 }
{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e7651"),
  team: 'Rockets',
  points: 19 }
{ _id: ObjectId("6203e4a91e95a9885e1e7653"),
  team: 'Cavs',
  points: 33 } 

Notice that each of the documents in the output have a value in the “points” field greater than 30 or less than 20.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in MongoDB:

MongoDB: How to Query with a Date Range
MongoDB: How to Use a “NOT IN” Query
MongoDB: How to Query for “not null” in Specific Field