ArangoDB, what's the better way to peform queries?

Question

What's better to retrieve complex data from ArangoDB: A big query with all collection joins and graph traversal or multiple queries for each piece of data?

Answer 1

I think it depends on several aspects, e.g. the operation(s) you want to perform, scenario in which the querie(s) should be executed or if you favor performance over maintainability.

AQL provides the ability to write a single non-trivial query which might span through entire dataset and perform complex operation(s). Dissolving a big query into multiple smaller ones might improve maintainability and code readability, but on the other hand separate queries for each piece of data might have negative performance impact in the form of network latency associated with each request. One should also consider if the scenario allows to work with partial results returned from database while the other batch of queries is being processed.