Source: Izenda
Published: October 2019

Relational vs Non-Relational Databases

Circulated: May 22, 2020

Relational databases

• Think of an Excel Spreadsheet

• Fits nicely into rows and columns (i.e. schema)

• Stores data in tables

• Called Structured Query Language (SQL) databases

Non-relational databases

• Think of a Word Document

• Does not use a tabular schema of rows and columns

• More flexible because data doesn’t have to fit into a pre-defined schema

• Called Not Only SQL databases (NoSQL)

• Four types
  - Document-oriented databases
  - Key-Value stores
  - Wide-Column stores
  - Graph stores

• A good rule of thumb: the bigger the data set, the more likely a non-relational database is a better fit.