Commenting from a SQL Server perspective as it's what I know best - there's a native JSON data type, so you're absolutely able to store JSON in columns and inte

Commenting from a SQL Server perspective as it's what I know best - there's a native JSON data type, so you're absolutely able to store JSON in columns and interact with it as such. If you don't mind getting a bit more sophisticated..... Certainly with XML (the JSON tools weren't as mature as the XML ones, though they're hopefully improving) it isn't tricky to sling a document at the database and have it create a whole tree of very standard RDBMS-style table records. Nor is it that tricky to write code which, when given the ID of a record, returned it and its children as a document tree. Whether it's the right approach for you is another matter, but it's very doable.