Does Couchbase/CouchDB allow me to move / skip the CRUD middle man from the server?

So currently this is a common setup: > Client -> Ajax -> Server CRUD -> Database Does Couchbase allow me to do this? > Client -> Ajax -> Database This might be more technically correct: > Client -> Ajax REST -> Database Does this mean that I could just have the client directly interacting with the database, therefore reducing the load on the server? Theoretically this would make scaling a website more cost efficient. If so, has this method been increasing in popularity usage? If not, why? It seems like this is a huge advantage.