Hello, I’m unsure whether I should use the Roblox datastore or an external database (SQL Server) to store player data, I was once told that the Roblox datastore has some limitations and that it would be better to use a database external, I don’t know if it’s good to use an external database because I don’t know of any big game that uses it and I would like an opinion.
I did a developer discussion about this and I was mostly told to use roblox’s as if your game gets alot of players an external database might get filled up and expensive. Also having a ready to use database is one of the good things about roblox studio.
If you really want to, make it save the values every month or so as a backup
Most games are better off using roblox’s datastore as their are no expenses. Unless you are making a game which will not be able to work with roblox their systems, use roblox datastores.
Don’t quote me on this but [iirc] Ultimate Driving uses an external database.
I found this out years ago when I attempted to play the game during a datastore outage and my progression properly loaded while games that relied on DataStoreService to store player data would fail to fetch my data each and every time.
With an external database, you have to access it using HttpService. This means you’re limited to 500 requests per minute (per server). You also have complete authority over the amount of data you store, the throughput, caching behavior, etc.
Although DataStoreService has its limitations, you shouldn’t run into issues with it assuming you use it for the purposes that it was designed for.