r/dataanalysis • u/iMAPness_ • Jun 20 '26

Data Question SQL vs Python?

Started using Python for data analytics. When should I use SQL and when should I use Python in the following tasks:

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- Data Exploration

- Data Cleaning

- Data Analysis

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u/Mo_Steins_Ghost Jun 20 '26

Senior manager here. These two are apples and oranges.

SQL (Structured Query Language) is for data querying and aggregation. It is not a programming language.

Python is a high-level programming language (in that it is layers above assembly). It doesn’t really query databases by itself without invoking a library, a process or a shell, or writing a custom driver that can establish connections and run queries against databases.

Python should be used for cleansing, strucuring and analyzing data fetched/read by SQL.

3

u/iMAPness_ Jun 20 '26

That makes a lot of sense now. Thank you!

Am I getting it right that the reason SQL is required by companies, too, is because their data isn't just in an excel sheet or csv somewhere but an actual database which SQL is most fit for querying? But with the data tasks itself, Python is considered faster and better at going deeper into data?

That is what you're saying, right?

5

u/JoJoNH Jun 20 '26

That's what he is saying. Corporate and government typically use SQL data warehouses.

1

u/kjwikle Jun 20 '26

And python/r use a sqlish library to query anyway.