Editing Openai/692e1a61-9f08-800b-89a7-b2d4c506df31 (section)

==== 4. Why not to use NoSQL (and when SQL is still better) ====

For balance: NoSQL is not a wholesale replacement for relational DBs.

Relational systems are usually better when:
* You need strong ACID guarantees across complex transactions (financial systems, inventory integrity, accounting, etc.)
* Your data is highly relational and normalized, and you need ad-hoc querying and reporting
* You rely heavily on SQL joins, constraints, and the richness of the relational model
* You want to do complex analytics on OLTP data (or at least easily ETL to a warehouse)

NoSQL often trades some combination of:
* Strong consistency
* Rich querying (especially joins)
* Transactional semantics

for better scalability, availability, and flexibility.