[datatrashfire]

Row based databases are optimized for accessing compete rows and joins. Columnar storage is optimized for accessing all, or many column values across rows. This makes aggregates and applying transformation logic faster with columnar storage than row based storage. Ie they are great for data warehouses and other analytical workloads.

Ps, great and still highly relevant resource covering all the major database system designs, their advantages and drawbacks: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/designing-data-intensiv...