Handling relationships in NoSQL databases

Unlike relational databases, NoSQL databases do not support joins or foreign keys for defining relationships between collections.

Schema-less databases, such as MongoDB, do not enforce relationships like traditional relational databases. Instead, two primary approaches can be used for handling relationships: embedding and referencing.

Embedding involves storing related data within a single document. This approach is suitable for all types of relationships, provided that the embedded data is closely tied to the parent document. This technique is good for read performance for frequently accessed data and atomic updates with a single document. However, it can easily lead to size limitation problems with data duplication and potential inconsistencies if the embedded data changes frequently.

Referencing involves storing references to related documents using their object ID or other unique identifiers. This approach is suitable for many...