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How to choose a database

Establishedest.Started 26 Aug 20261 min read#engineering#database
Where it sits: Database

Database types
Relational Database

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PostgreSQL
Strengths:
transactions, joins, constraints, flexible queries

Weaknesses:
horizontal scale/sharding complexity, not ideal for huge analytical scans

DynamoDB
Strengths:
massive scale, predictable low-latency key access, operational simplicity

Weaknesses:
access-pattern-driven modelling, limited relational querying

Columnar
Strengths:
analytical scans, aggregations, compression

Weaknesses:
poor fit for transactional workloads

Graph
Strengths:
relationship/traversal-heavy queries

Weaknesses:
specialised, unnecessary if relationships aren't the primary query pattern

Write heavy

In traditional database system with 1 master, it is difficult to scale writes.
A single postgres can manage well 5-10k write per second.

You can add more masters to distribute writes, but that's difficult to manage.
You can also use Database Sharding.

Flow charts

Specific versus

DocumentDB vs DynamoDB

In this topic

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    Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon DocumentDB are both fully managed NoSQL databases on AWS, but they are built for entirely different data models and architectural needs. Choose DynamoDB if you need predictable, single-digit…

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