Databases are a place to save alot of different types of data.

They are used in combination with an application, which accesses the Database to pull data it needs to output and store data that has been input.

There are 2 different “genre” of databases:

SQL-Databases, databases that work with the SQL (Structured Query Language) which is, as the name implies very structured. These are usually used in most more “simple” applications and arent as scalable as the other option. They work with a clearly defined table of columns (different fields) and rows (different entries), to have an understandable, human readable database that is simple to store data like user data, addresses and all sorts of things you may need.

NoSQL-Databases, contrary to popular belief, the “No” does not stand for “No”, it stands for “not only”, so even these can contain SQL but not only SQL whereas SQL DBs are ONLY SQL.

NoSQL-Databases are often used for more complex applications.

• Graph Databases use nodes and edges to display data, where edges act as a kind of relationship between nodes.
• Document-Based Databases store data in kind of documents like “JSON” or “XML” instead of clearly defined tables.
• Key-Value Databases store data, as the name implies, with every Value being assigned to a unique Key.
• Column-Oriented Databases Store value by the column, not by the row, for more read-heavy applications.

Also NoSQL-Databases can often be more scalable than SQL.