title: Are there any REAL advantages to NoSQL over RDBMS for structured data on one machine?
body: <p>So I've been trying hard to figure out if NoSQL is really bringing that much value outside of auto-sharding and handling UNSTRUCTURED data.</p>
  
  <p>Assuming I can fit my STRUCTURED data on a single machine OR have an effective 'auto-sharding' feature for SQL, what advantages do any NoSQL options offer? I've determined the following:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p><strong>Document-based (MongoDB, Couchbase, etc)</strong> - Outside of it's 'auto-sharding' capabilities, I'm having a hard time understanding where the benefit is. Linked objects are quite similar to SQL joins, while Embedded objects significantly bloat doc size and causes a challenge regarding to replication (a comment could belong to both a post AND a user, and therefore the data would be redundant). Also, loss of ACID and transactions are a big disadvantage.</p></li>
  <li><p><strong>Key-value based (Redis, Memcached, etc)</strong> - Serves a different use case, ideal for caching but not complex queries</p></li>
  <li><p><strong>Columnar (Cassandra, HBase, etc )</strong> - Seems that the big advantage here is more how the data is stored on disk, and mostly useful for aggregations rather than general use</p></li>
  <li><p><strong>Graph (Neo4j, OrientDB, etc)</strong> - The most intriguing, the use of both edges and nodes makes for an interesting value-proposition, but mostly useful for highly complex relational data rather than general use.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I can see the advantages of Key-value, Columnar and Graph DBs for specific use cases (Caching, social network relationship mapping, aggregations), but can't see any reason to use something like MongoDB for STRUCTURED data outside of it's 'auto-sharding' capabilities. </p>
  
  <p>If SQL has a similar 'auto-sharding' ability, would SQL be a no-brainer for structured data? Seems to me it would be, but I would like the communities opinion...</p>
  
  <p>NOTE: This is in regards to a typical CRUD application like a Social Network, E-Commerce site, CMS etc.</p>