SQL VS NoSQL

What is SQL

Structured Query Language is also known as SQL is one of the most commonly used querying languages across the world. Ever since its inception, demand for SQL is growing and has been able to find its root from a small startup to a mammoth company. One of the biggest factors for its popularity is most of the software that is present in the market are Open-Source, Easy to grasp and install. 

What is NoSQL 

Non-SQL or NoSQL is used for querying the data outside the traditional SQL databases. This is because of the distributed architecture. NoSQL is also known as Not Only SQL because it is can still store the data stored by traditional SQL, only the way of storing differs. They can also differ based on data models. The most common data models are document, key-value, column, and graph.

Let's dive deeper and try to find the dissimilarities between the two. 

Dissimilarities

1. Database:- The biggest reason for separating SQL and NoSQL is the Database System used by the two. SQL is Relational Database Management System whereas NoSQL is for Non-relational or Distributed Database Management Systems. 

2. Structure:- The next thing that differentiates SQL from NoSQL is that we need to decide the structure of the database beforehand i.e. we need to finalize the schemas, tables, views, etc. In the case of NoSQL, we do not need to pay so much attention to the structure of the database as it is mostly distributed and unorganised, as the data is stored in files, key-value pair, graph, column-based structures and each of them can also differ.  

3. Scalability:- Another key difference is the scalability of the two. Both can be scaled but have their limitations also. SQL can be scaled vertically, i.e. for scaling the SQL we need to add CPU, RAM, SSD etc. Now if we talk about NoSQL, it can be scaled horizontally that is we need to add more servers to scale it.

4. Property:- It can be said as the base or can be considered as the founding principles that the two follows. This is the main thing that differentiates SQL from NoSQL. SQL follows the ACID property (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability) whereas NoSQL follows CAP Theorem i.e. it maintains tradeoff between the Consistency, Availability & Partition by adjusting the other two. 

5. Query:- Query is the way how we retrieve the data from the database. We can easily write complex queries having multiple tables joins, clauses and conditions in SQL, but when it comes to NoSQL this is not possible. We need to use simple queries when retrieving data from a NoSQL database.

6. Support:- Since, SQL has been there in the market for a long time and is also widely used by small businesses to Multinational companies there is a humongous market for it, thus providing a huge community. This makes getting help in case of need or issues easier and quicker. As compared to NoSQL demand for it growing as the market for Big Data technologies is growing, so still, the community for NoSQL is not as huge as compared to SQL, which leaves us with limited support, most of it coming from the NoSQL's dev community. 

Summary

We have seen the various points on which the two popular database management systems, i.e. SQL and NoSQL differs. 

Both the technologies cater to different areas of data storage, SQL is used for mostly structured data and is doing exceptionally good in its field. On the other hand when it comes to storing big data coming from various sources then the structure is not possible to maintain constant, hence NoSQL is the best choice in this place.

That's all from here. Until then, This is the Quick DataScience Team providing a Quick and Easy guide/insight of SQL and NoSQL.