Chapter 7. Using NoSQL with Flask

A NoSQL (short for Not Only SQL) database is any nonrelational data store. It usually focuses on speed and scalability. NoSQL has been taking the web development world by storm for the past 7 years. Huge companies, such as Netflix and Google, announced that they were moving many of their services to NoSQL databases, and many smaller companies followed this.

This chapter will deviate from the rest of the book in which Flask will not be the main focus. The focus on database design might seem odd in a book about Flask, but choosing the correct database for your application is arguably the most important decision while designing your technology stack. In the vast majority of web applications, the database is the bottleneck, so the database you pick will determine the overall speed of your app. A study conducted by Amazon showed that even a 100-ms delay caused a 1 percent reduction in sales, so speed should always be one of the main concerns of a web...