title: What is actually happening when I compact CouchDB database?
body: <p>I've noticed, that every time I compact my CouchDB instance after inserting some stuff, the size drops down quite a lot (sometimes even down to 20%).</p>
  
  <p>I'm not deleting or modifying any data, all I do is basically insert new records, compact, and the size goes down.</p>
  
  <p>What is actually happening when I'm compacting the database? Is it somehow compressing the data? Or is it because every new record comes with some junk, which is later removed by the compact?</p>