I write SQL for a living and am time woodworker (not good at all). Sometimes I get pieces of wood cut by industrial machines at the shop and sometimes I use my manual saw. I don't have money or space to set up a professional wood cutting machine in my workshop. Hand held saw not the best for cutting wood but sometimes it just makes sense. You are right, graph database things need to be done in a graph database but speaking for myself I have never set up or used a graph database. It is easier (not right) for me to learn recursive statements than to set up and learn to use a graph database.
It's an unlikely comparison in the first place; who is considering, on one hand, using SQLite right on the client device, and on the other, maybe spinning up a graph database that will almost certainly not just run on the client device? I submit that it's next to nobody. You can run SQLite on a server, but nearly nobody does that either (and not without reason). The idea that recursive CTEs are some sort of arcane technique that's impossible to debug is also not my experience with them at all.
