The question isn't how many orphaned rows do you have, it's whether it matters. Databases are wonderful but they cannot maintain every invariant and they cannot express a whole application. They're one tool in the belt.
> cannot express a whole application
Not with that attitude: https://docs.postgrest.org/en/v13/index.html
Orphaned rows can very much matter for data privacy concerns, which is also where I most frequently see this approach failing.
Re:PlanetScale for Postgres is now GA
by jashmatthews on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @01:27AM
(#45343090)
Most companies can afford not to give a shit until they hit SOC2 or GDPR compliance and then suddenly orphaned data is a giant liability.
“We handle FKs in the app for flexibility.”
“And how many orphaned rows do you have?”
“…”