It’s difficult to say anything meaningful about this topic. I can’t think of another topic that requires the phrase “it depends” more. And it’s true for a number of reasons.
- You can’t compare them without context.
- SQL and NoSQL aren’t really well-defined.
You can’t say one is better than the other. That would be like asking which is better, a dump truck or a Ferrari? It depends on what you need to do (go fast or haul dirt?) and whether you have trained people who can use those machines.
They simply aren’t. In fact, I can’t even really tell you which vehicle represents SQL and which represents NoSQL.
But I’m going to give it a shot anyway.
I’m Presenting “SQL vs. NoSQL” March 28, 2017 (Next Tuesday) in Kitchener
I’m excited to be invited to the next KW Big Data Peer2Peer meetup.
I’ll be giving a presentation called “All about SQL vs. NoSQL: A comparison of relational and non-relational data”. If you’re in town I’d love to see you there!
We’ll explore what things typically characterize SQL:
- Normalization
- ACID properties
- Declarative query language, Query optimizers, write-ahead logs
- What do you get for free in SQL? What things get awkward?
And of course, by contrast, we’ll talk about non-relational data and other data stores that break those rules.
It should be fun! I hope to see you there.
