Flat File vs Relational Database

A flat file is a single table database.

Usually, each column has a heading which describes the content of the column. Each row represents a single thing or entity which has a number of data or fields, associated with it.

A relational database has many tables that are linked using relationships.

Similarly, each column of a relational database usually represents an attribute like name or age, while each row represents a record of one entity or object. The difference between many flat-files and a relational database is that there are links between tables in a relational database.

These links try to keep the information in the database correct and consistent, for example by stopping or warning of the deletion of related data.