Difference between SQL and NoSQL

Sudharsanan Rajaram
2 min readJul 5, 2021

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Why we should go NoSQL instead of SQL? We have been working in SQL for so long years suddenly why we need to migrate? Does SQL lack of all features of NoSQL? With all Why Questions in my mind involved in writing this page.

Here are some of the common characteristic of SQL
1) Highly Available
2) High performance
3) Scalability
4) Flexibility

Before understanding the characteristic of NoSQL, lets understand about the history of NoSQL. The Word NoSQL means no relational between the data. The name was coined in 1998. This NoSQL also meant as not only SQL, hence many data bases support SQL like Query Language to it.

Some of the characteristic of NoSQL includes
1) Scalability
2) High Performance
3) Highly available
4) Fast Queries

We see the features are very similar, then Why we should go with NoSQL?
Lets look up each characteristic one after another

  1. Highly Available:
    Though both database are highly available but the NoSQL leads the way in the form of readability. since there is no relativity between the table its easily retrievable hence no joins needed. In relational database we will follow normalization hence joins are required in most of the cases. Both type of database has high availability but there is a small silver line between the both. Tech arch should wisely choose between them.
  2. Scalability:
    The most SQL database are horizontally scalable means that increases the CPU, RAM etc. but this guy NoSQL scales vertically means it can increases the servers from which it can handle large network traffic. Hence NoSQL becomes more powerful and larger. Scalability indirectly supports performance hence make them with choice of both.
  3. High Performance:
    Both performs equivalently but where to use both is a biggest question. If you are dealing with high reporting system then you should obviously go with NoSQL system where it doesn’t compromise with readability but suppose when you want to have ACID properties then you should obviously go with SQL Database. But nowadays NoSQL databases are also trying to achieve ACID properties.
  4. Fast Queries:
    The language to access the both databases are different. SQL has its own syntax but each NoSQL databases differs like Mongo uses JavaScript, Cassandra uses CQL etc. SQL has biggest community to help but NoSQL has the lower community to help. The NoSQL should be designed in the way that easy to read, hence there should limited query usage.

There are various other features but just listed the few. Both has its own features but need to choose appropriately and depends on the application use case.

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Sudharsanan Rajaram

I am a Data Enthusiast ,Programmer, Valuable investor, Good husband