While a relational database stores data in rows and reads data row by row, a

database is organized as a set of columns. This means that when you want to run

analytics on a small number of columns, you can read those columns directly without

consuming memory with the unwanted data. Columns are often of the same type

and benefit from more efficient compression, making reads even faster. These types

of databases can quickly aggregate the value of a given column $($adding up the total

sales for the year, for example$).$ Use cases include analytics.

column$-$oriented

document

graph

key$/$value

$($none of the above$)$