---
title: "NoSQL"
url: "https://www.pulumi.com/dev/glossary/nosql/"
image: "https://www.pulumi.com/assets/og/dev/glossary/nosql.png"
---

# NoSQL

A type of database that organizes data into some data structure other than the two-dimensional tables seen in relational databases. Also called non-relational databases, NoSQL databases can be [document-based](https://www.pulumi.com/dev/glossary/document-oriented/) (like MongoDB), [column-based](https://www.pulumi.com/dev/glossary/column-oriented/) (like Apache Cassandra), [graph-based](https://www.pulumi.com/dev/glossary/graph-oriented/) (like Neo4j), or [key-value](https://www.pulumi.com/dev/glossary/key-value/) (like DynamoDB). Other flavors of NoSQL databases do exist, including hybrids, but these are the most commonly-used.

| Database Type | Use Cases | Cloud Examples | Self-hosted Examples |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Key-Value | ECommerce, recommendation engines, high-traffic | [DynamoDB](https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/), [CosmosDB](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cosmos-db/), [BigTable](https://cloud.google.com/bigtable) | [Redis](https://redis.io/) |
| Column | Business intelligence, data warehousing | [Keyspaces](https://aws.amazon.com/keyspaces/), [CosmosDB](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cosmos-db/) | [Apache Cassandra](https://cassandra.apache.org/_/index.html) |
| Graph | Recommendation engines, fraud detection, social networks | [Neptune](https://aws.amazon.com/neptune/) | [Neo4j](https://neo4j.com/) |
| Document | Content management systems, user profiles, product information | [DocumentDB](https://aws.amazon.com/documentdb/), [CosmosDB](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cosmos-db/), [Firestore](https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore) | [MongoDB](https://www.mongodb.com/) |