Just because the data is a graph, doesn't mean you need a graph database - especially if you're a small team
Just because the data is a graph, doesn't mean you need a graph database. Especially if you're a small team.
Situations I've been in where someone has proposed using a graph database: many
Number of those situations where a graph database was actually needed: 0
Situations I've been in where managing a graph database would have made everyone on and around the team's day to day life worse: all of them
Are graph databases useful? Yes, at a certain level of scale.
Do I want to be responsible for maintaining a system with one? Absolutely not.
Beware unnecessary complexity.
Agents are making it cheap for attackers to find unlocked doors. The window to invest in CI, test coverage, and fast safe rollback is now.
GitHub is absorbing a tsunami of AI generated code, and the outages keep coming. I've never been more open to an agent native alternative.
Agents can run multiple rounds of review and verification before you look. But ship to humans without looking yourself, and something subtle always feels off — because fully specifying a system that feels right to a human is hard.
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