Most datasets have relationships forming a graph, but few need to be analyzed as a graph. Graph databases specialize for the latter usecase, with large datasets

Most datasets have relationships forming a graph, but few need to be analyzed as a graph. Graph databases specialize for the latter usecase, with large datasets. But you could always traverse graphs with recursive SQL — it’s just less pleasant, and perhaps less performant — but often that’s all you need (and often people confuse having a graph relationship with needing a graph-specialized database)