Would mysql with sharding (Vitess) be faster than any no SQL database?

Question

I have been trying to understand why nosql db is considered to be faster than RDBMS. I understand that nosql dbs don't follow the ACID properties but instead follows BASE principle which is the reason why nosql is able to horizontally scale.

What I am trying to understand here is that if there is a big difference in similar queries. For instance let's say we have a search which searches all the matching users in our db. We have same data in MySQL as well as in any nosql db and let's assume that for nosql we have just 1 shard. So would there still be a difference in the speed of the query or would it be the same?

Answer 1

With disks getting faster and cheaper, the speed advantage may not be significant enough to make a difference.

However, you can do a lot more with systems like Vitess in terms of transactions, joins and indexes. At the same time, you can continue to scale like NoSQL systems. For this reason, I think Vitess is an overall better trade-off.