How to Wield NoSQL Databases

Question

Don&rsquo;t worry HN, I still love postgres, but I&rsquo;ve recently learned that while I&rsquo;ve been nice and cozy in my relational world, I have little awareness of noSQL databasesthings i&rsquo;ve stumbled upon: - using redis ordered sets to rank things - dynamodb single table design - in a system design interview i was asked how to prevent data corruption from two requests targeting the same keyit seems as though there&rsquo;s a whole world where all the noSQL companies are trying to solve all the problems that relational db had solved.

byoung2 · Accepted Answer

I have never found a good explanation of when a noSQL database is the right choice. In most cases a relational database makes more sense, and when you do really need to save a JSON-like data structure, you have to answer this question: is the structure predictable? Then destructure it and store it in relational tables, if it can be any shape then it can be put in a JSON column in postgres or MySQL. Hopefully you are just reading it and not querying inside it.