Link state vs Distance vector for large networks

doctorlexus

I could have sworn that I heard Jeremy Cioara say, in CBT Nuggets, that link state routing protocols were not good for larger networks because the routing/topology table becomes incredibly large. But a lot of what I'm reading online lately is saying link state is preferable for large networks, whereas distance vector is better for smaller networks. If that's the case, why do ISP's use BGP, which is distance vector? I feel like I'm getting conflicting information.

In my mind, Jeremy's explanation made sense, since distance vector protocols only needed to know next hop information. And for that, it seemed like they'd be better suited for large networks because one didn't need to worry about overly large routing/topology tables. So either I misheard him, or I'm misunderstanding something fundamental here.

clarson

distance vector updates the whole routing table on each update. That is every 30 sec. with ripv2.
link state only updates the routing table when there is a change and then with only the changes. Lots less network traffic for a large network. But, then the router needs to recompute the routing topology.