Distributed SQL vs. NewSQL

Distributed SQL databases were introduced in response to the limitations of NoSQL databases, which failed to provide relational data modeling with support for single-row consistency and multi-row ACID transactions. NewSQL databases were developed to address this issue, offering two distinct flavors: automated sharding on top of monolithic SQL databases and new distributed storage engines that maintain a single logical SQL database concept. Distributed SQL databases like Google Spanner and YugabyteDB are built from the ground up to exploit cloud elasticity and work on unreliable infrastructure, whereas NewSQL databases struggled with scalability and consistency in multi-zone, multi-region, and multi-cloud deployments.