What are the advantages and disadvantages of using relational databases?

Relational databases (RDBs) use tables with well-defined schemas and support the SQL language for queries.

Advantages:

• Strict data structure: ensures data integrity and consistency.
• Transaction support: guarantees atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID).
• Powerful query capabilities: complex JOINs, filtering, aggregation.
• Wide support and maturity: many tools and communities.

Disadvantages:

• Scalability: more difficult to scale horizontally compared to NoSQL.
• Schema flexibility: changing table structures can be labor-intensive.
• Performance: may decrease with very large data volumes and complex queries.

Example: for banking systems where data integrity and transactions are crucial, relational databases are the best fit.