I can't speak for the person you're replying to, but I would like to point out that RDBMSes are built on theory designed explicitly to handle general data probl

I can't speak for the person you're replying to, but I would like to point out that RDBMSes are built on theory designed explicitly to handle general data problems. Situations for which the relational model is not a good fit are almost by definition special cases. Similarly, while it is wise not to lump all of the non-SQL/non-relational databases together, to say that the bulk of them share a common obsession with scalability is not much of a reach. After all, we're not talking about Neo4J, FramerD, MetaKit, etc. We're talking about young systems that were born out of frustration with scalability issues. It's true that they all have different tradeoffs, strengths and weaknesses, but one significant advantage of Postgres is that it does so well in such a variety of situations. Maybe it isn't perfect for every scenario, but it's pretty good for most scenarios. This is partly an inherent advantage of age, and partly the benefit of a sound theoretical foundation. A big thing I dislike about the current crop of NoSQL databases is that you are expected to learn a great deal about their inner workings to make an informed decision about whether or not to use them. MongoDB really epitomizes this. But this is a pretty lazy complaint compared to random data loss and insane defaults (early days of Mongo), and I have to give you that. Your position sounds quite reasonable compared to the one I've been primed by, but it's going to be a few more years before these databases mature to the point I'd consider one a reasonable first choice for a generic database. I don't draw the line quite as far as the GP—sometimes you have a special case and you need special tools—but I can certainly empathize with questioning the wisdom of making a distributed non-relational database the primary store for a low-load, classic RDBMS problem. But Twilio has come forward and agreed with that position and denying that they do that, so the spark for this flamewar is conjecture. While people have come forward to defend such a configuration, few seem to be endorsing it by using it themselves. This says something about the reasonableness of the idea.