Use Loop or direct database query?

Question

In one of my form input, the options are a list of posts. I can use the loop to get the posts, but, getting things from database table is faster, right? I see plugins sometimes use db directly, sometimes use loop. I'm confused.

Answer 1

In general I try to avoid custom SQL queries as much as i can and use the native WordPress functions but in some cases its much better/faster to use custom queries.

if the case is just get a list of posts the you can use the WP_Query or get_posts which will work almost as fast as a custom query (as long as you don't need some advan